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CRYPTOGRAPHY
OR
THE HISTORY, PRINCIPLES, AND PRACTICE OF
CIPHER-WRITING
w
>TOGRA
OR
The History, Principles, and Practice
OF
CIPHER-WRITING
e<^ BY
Fl^EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A
U\
AUTHOR OF "familiar WILD FLOWERS," " MYTHLAND,"
" NATURAL HISTORY LORE AND LEGEND,"
"the birth and development OF
ORNAMENT," " WAYSIDK
SKETCHES," ETC
Heres noiv mystery and hieroglyphic ^
Ben Jonson — The Alchemy si.
LONDON
WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Meaning of cryptography — Objections to its study — Its
legitimate use and value — Historic examples of its
employment — Deliglit in the mysterious — Many other
ways of conveying secret information — Symbolism of
action — The spoken word imprisoned and dispatched
— A matter not necessarily secret because one cannot
understand it — Egyptian hieroglypliics — Chinese
characters — Indian mutiny Greek — Ancient Biblical
cryptogram — Sheshach of Jeremiah — Sir Henry
Eawlinson thereon — Statements for and against —
Julius Caesar's secret code — The waxed tablet of
Demaratus — Difference between hidden and secret
writing — The shaven head a writing tablet — Charle-
magne and Alfred the Great as cryptographic experts
— Mediaeval authorities — Trithemius the Benedictine
— " Steganographia " — Dabbling in the black art —
Dr. Dee — Batista Porta's book on "Natural Majick"
— Invisible writing — Chemical methods by vitriol,
alum, etc. — Writing on glass or crystal — Papal In-
quisition— Disappearing writing — Messages wrapped
round rollers— Two methods — A slave's back the
writing surface — Chemical methods of no great value
ordinarily — Disadvantages of use — Action of light
and heat— Chloride of cobalt, sulphate of copper, etc.
— Often impossible to procure the materials . .11
5
6 CONTENTS
CHAPTER II
PAGE
Ancient use of arbitrary symbols — Tyroiiian abbreviations
— Early works on shorthand— Excessive abbreviation
of inscriptions on coins, etc. — Telegram-English —
Mason-marks— Rise of cipher-writing in England —
Clarendon's " History of the Rebellion " — Battle of
Naseby — Royal correspondence captured and de-
ciphered— Published by Parliament — Weighted naval
signal-codes — Charles I. a great expert in crypto-
graphy— Use of nulles or non-significants — Numeri-
cal ciphers — Mediaeval inscription without vowels —
Ciphers of Queen Henrietta and Sir Ralph Yerney —
Great use of cipher at troublous periods of history
— The " Century of Inventions " of the Marquis of
Worcester — Birth of the steam-engine — Dedication
of his labours to the nation — His numerous sugges-
tions for cryptograms— The "disk" cryptogram-
Principle modified to sliding strip — Bead alphabet —
Heraldic representation of colours in black and white
— The "string" cipher — Bacon a cryptographic en-
thusiast—His essentials of a good cipher— His
highest perfection of a cipher — His plan cumbrous
and unsatisfactory — A Trithemian example —
Elizabethan arbitrary mark ciphers — No real mystery
in them 61
CHAPTER III
Is an undecipherable cryptogram possible? — The art of
deciphering — Keys for the analysis of a cryptogram
— Oft recurring letters— Great repetition of vowels
^Patient perseverance— Papers on the subject in
Gentleman's Magazine of 1742— "Value of general
knowledge— Conrad's rules— The letter E—" Noughts
and crosses " cryptogram — Its construction — Ciphers
from agony columns of Standard and Tmies— Prying
busybodies — Alternate letters significant— Ciphers
CONTENTS 7
PAGE
based oii divers shiftings of the letters — Cryptogram
in Cocker's " Arithmetick " — Inventor in 1761 of
supposed absolutely secret system — His hopes and
fears thereon— Illegal to publish Parliamentary de-
bates—Evasion of the law— Poe's use of cryptogram
in story — Secret marks made by tramps and vag-
rants—Shop ciphers for marking prices on goods —
Cryptogrammic trade advertisements -Examples of
cipher construction — The "grill" cipher — The "rc-
Tolviug grill" — The "slip-card" — Forms of numeri-
cal cipher — The " Mirabeau " — Count Grousfield's
cipher — Communication by nse of a dictionary — The
" Newark "—The " Clock-hands "—The " two-word "
cipher — Conclusion 108
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. TAGE
1. Message wrapped round a Ruler . . . 4G
2.. Ditto Illegible through Use of Wrong Ruler 48
3. Message Unwrapped from Roller . . .48
4. Divided to show Facility for Detection . . 49
5. Better Method of Roller Forji of Message . 50
6. Message of No. 5 Unrolled . . . .51
7. Mason-marks from Ancient Buildings . . 66
8. The '' Revolving Disk " Cipher . . . .88
9. Modification of Fig. 8 for Straight Edge . 91
10. The "Bead" Cipher 98
11. The "String" Cipher 100
12. Elizabethan Arbitrary Symbols for Letters . 105
13. The " Noughts and Crosses " Cipher . . 124
14. The " Noughts and Crosses " : Key Changed . 126
15. The " Grille " : Pierced Card .... 154
16. The " Grille ": Message Read through Openings 156
17. The "Grille": Message as Sent off
18. The " Revolving Grille " Form of Cipher
9
158
160
10
ILLUSTRATIONS
19. Total of Openfngs made by Revolution of
Grille
20. The Message by "Revolving Grille
21. The "Slip-card" Cipher .
22. Inscription from Church in Spain
23. Numerical Form of Cipher
24. The "Newark" Cipher .
25. The " Clock-hands " Cipher
26. The "Two-word" Cipher.
161
163
165
174
175
177
181
183
CHAPTER I
Meaning of cryptography — Objections to its study — Its legit-
imate use and value — Historic examples of its employ-
ment— Delight in the mysterious — Many other ways of
conveying secret information — Symbolism of action —
The spoken word imprisoned and dispatched — A matter
not necessarily secret because one cannot understand it
— Egyptian hieroglyphics — Chinese characters — Indian
mutiny Greek— Ancient Biblical cryj^togram— Sheshach
of Jeremiah — Sir Henry Rawlinson thereon — Statements
for and against — Julius Caesar's secret code— The waxed
tablet of Demaratus — Difference between hidden and
secret writing — The shaven head a wi-iting tablet —
Charlemagne and Alfred the Great as cryptographic
experts — Mediaeval authorities — Tritheraius the Bene-
dictine— " Steganographia "—Dabbling in the black art
— Dr. Dee — Batista Porta's book on " Xatural Majick" —
Invisible writing — Chemical methods by vitriol, alum,
etc.— Writing on glass or crystal — Papal Inquisition —
Disappearing writing — Messages wrapped round rollers
— Two methods — A slave's back the writing surface—
Chemical methods of no great value ordinarily' — Dis-
advantages of use — Action of liglit and heat — Chloride
of cobalt, sulphate of copper, etc.— Often impossible to
procure the materials.
r I iHE word Cryptography is derived from
the two Greek words hryptos and grapho,
the first signifying that which is concealed
12 CRYPTOGRAPHY
or hidden, and tlie second meaning to write
or describe, and it is in brief the conveying
in a secret manner of any intelligence we
may desire to communicate.
It may at once occur to our readers as an
objection to the study of cryptography that
it is an art that may palpably be very readily
adapted to evil purpose, and that in doing
anything to facilitate its study we are placing
a weapon in the hands of the ill-disposed.
This is an argument, however, that applies
equally to many studies that nevertheless are
of great value. Astronomy may in evil hands
become astrology, and the glorious stars them-
selves mere counters for the fortune-teller ;
while from the researches of chemistry may
be derived the valuable dye, the healing
medicine, or other beneficent discovery, or it,
equally readily, may be perverted to supply
the arsenal of the dyjiamitard or the subtle
potion of the secret poisoner. Moreover, even
if we regard cryptography as affording means
OR CIPHER-WRITING 1 3
for clandestine or treasonable communications,
it is clearly a double-edged sword, and a
knowledge of its principles and practice may
at least equally well be used to unmask deceit
and to unravel the tangled skein of the
traitor.
It is sufficiently evident, on a moment's re-
flection, that this art of cryptography has a
most legitimate use in the world. There are
times of stress and danger in the history of
a nation when it is absolutely impossible that
vital operations in the field could be conducted
to a successful issue if all the world at their
inception had to be taken into confidence, and
every step became at once a matter of common
knowledge and discussion. In the same way
the labours of the diplomatist could scarcely
fructify to the national benefit or turn aside a
national danger if every step had to be laid
bare to the eye and the well-meant or acri-
monious criticism of friend or foe, and become
at once the property of every tattler who could
14 CRYPTOGRAPHY
read a letter or any traitor wlio could copy
a dispatch.
During the stormy closing years of the reign
of Charles I., we find this art of secret writing
assiduously cultivated both by Royalist and
Parliamentarian, as the multitudinous records
preserved in the British Museum and our
other national archives abundantly testify.
Previously to this, in the stirring times of
Queen Elizabeth much use had been made of
it, and during the troublous days of the French
Revolution, when no man of any mark or in-
fluence was safe any hour from denunciation,
we find an immense use of this cipher-writing,
when treachery was at its deadly work, or
when the love that was stronger than death
sought to shield the victim from the impending
blow, and give the warning that might yet
secure safety by timely flight.
That which is secret and mysterious, calling
for acute intelligence to penetrate its meaning,
has always exercised a great fascination on
OR CIPHER-WRiriNG 15
the human mind. Hence at one end of the
scale we have the denunciations of the Hebrew
prophets clothed in mystic language or figured
in strange symbolic action,^ and at the other
the delight in puzzledom that finds its pabulum
in missing- word competitions, conundrums, and
such-like stimulants to the ingenuity of the
reader. This love of the mysterious, this
delight in setting one's wits to work to excel
others or to save oneself from checkmate, is
one great influence the more in the fascination
that cipher- writing has undoubtedly at all
times possessed.
Secrecy of communication may of course
take many forms. The scarcely perceptible
movement of the eye may convey a very de-
finite warning, or the talking on the fingers,
^ This symbolism has always exercised a very marked
influence amongst Eastern peoples. Our readers will
recall, as an example, the sending of a bird, mouse, frog,
and arrow by the Scythians to the Persians, as a gentle
hint to them that unless they could escape as a bird
by flight, could swim as frogs, or conceal themselves as
mice, they wei^e hastening to swift destruction.
l6 CRYPTOGRAPHY
leai'iiedlj called dactylology or clieirology, may
serve as a means of conveying a message. The
significance of flowers may make a bouquet
eloquent, or the gift of a ring may, in the
initials of the stones that enrich it, spell out
words of sympathy and tender feeling. The
Romans had a code of communication based
on touching various parts of the person ; thus
the finger to the forehead meant F, while the
touching of the beard signified B. Watch-
fires, waving torches, flashing mirrors, jangling
bells, have all been utilized ; but all these are
mentioned but to dismiss them, since our
present purpose is to deal only with such
methods of communication as are possible
by means of writing. Before, however, doing
so we cannot forbear reference to a quaint
suggestion that we encountered in an old
authority on the subject, whereby the human
voice was made the medium of transmis-
sion. The person desiring to send the mes-
sage was gravely instructed to breathe his
OR CIPHER-WRITING 17
words slowly and distinctly into a long tube
that was carefully and securely closed at
the other end. So soon as he had finished
all he had to say, the end into which he
had spoken was promptly fastened up, and
the message was then dispatched to the
receiver. This latter, on obtaining possession
of the tube, was careful to open it at the end
last sealed, as of course it was of great import-
ance that the words should come out distinctly
and in the order spoken. If by inadvertence
the wrong end were opened, the operator was
warned that the message would come out in
inverted order. On thinking out this valuable
idea we cannot help deciding that the direc-
tions given would lead to just the result
deprecated. If we, for instance, plugged up
the farther end of a railway tunnel, ran a train
into it, and then fastened up the near end,
we should, on presently re-opening this end,
find that the train would come out backwards.
However, this is a mere detail, and a very little
B
I8 CRYPTOGRAPHY
experience would soon decide which end of the
tube it was best to open. Baron Munchausen
seems to have quite accidentally hit upon
another curious property of sound, when the
melodies that he had apparently hopelessly
in hard frost endeavoured to get out of his
bugle flowed from it of themselves quite easily
when the instrument was brought into a well-
warmed room at his journey's end.
A matter is not necessarily secret, of course,
just because we or some other people fail
to understand it. This seems the barest of
truisms when once stated, but it needs enun-
ciation nevertheless. People, for instance, con-
stantly speak of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, as
Ben Jon son does on our title-page, as though
they had some reserved and occult significance,
whereas they were but the recognised symbols
for conveying ideas, recording history, and so
forth, of the whole educated caste of the
nation. In the days not so very long ago
when tliree-fourths of the people of England
:ir
OR CIPHER-WRITING 1 9
could neither read nor write, the epistles that
passed between the " quality," and written in
legible enough characters for those who were
sufficiently " scollerds " to read them, could
scarcely be considered examples of crypto-
graphy. The queer characters on a Chinese
tea-chest are to most of us Western people
merely meaningless lines and dabs of colour,
but the sole reason of their being put there
was that they might convey a meaning.
The Cantonese or Amoy man who painted
them was adding information, and had no
thought or intention of bewildering the outer
barbarian whose Eugby, Harrow, or board -
school training had in this matter failed him.
The outward form of the communication has
very little to do with it, but the intention
has almost everything to do with it. If we,
for instance, from a laudable desire to keep
up our French, often talk it in the family
circle, that is one thing ; but if we drop into
it because the servant is in the room, and it
20 CRYPTOGRAPHY
is not quite convenient that the details of our
approaching bankruptcy should also be dis-
cussed ten minutes afterwards in the kitchen,
that is quite another. If an English officer at
Aldershot chose to write out any little message
to a brother officer in English words, but
with Greek characters, he would be considered
eccentric or silly ; but such communications
passed in hundreds between British officers
during the Indian Mutiny. An intercepted
message written in English could have been
read easily enough in every camp of the
mutineers, and they would thus have become
possessed of valuable military information;
but this cryptogamic use of the Greek letters
rendered such communications entirely value-
less to them.
It has been freely stated by divers authori-
ties that the earliest examples of cipher-
writing may be seen in the use of the word
Sheshach by Jeremiah. He is the only writer
who uses it, and w^hile a Hebrew scholar
OR CIPHER-WRITING 21
assures us that the term is meaningless in
itself, it is undoubtedly made up by reversing
the letters that spell the Hebrew word for
Babylon. If a modern writer denouncing the
wickedness of London thought it prudent to
refer to it as Nodnol, those who detected the
transposition of the letters would have no
doubt of the meaning. Yet one cannot help
feeling a little hesitation in accepting the
Sheshach as an archaic cryptogram. One
authority we questioned said that there might
have been a good reason for disguising the
name ; but on going to the fountain-head and
reading the verse itself that the prophet wrote
over six hundred years before the Christian
era, we find, "How is Sheshach taken! and
how is the praise of the whole earth surprised !
How is Babylon become an astonishment
among the nations ! " There seems but little
reason for any concealment in the first half
of the verse when the second half effectually
lays all open. Sir Henry Rawlinson, no mean
22 CRYPTOGRAPHY
authority, does not feel the accepted explana-
tion so entirely satisfactory as to render any
other superfluous. He states that IJr, the city
of Abraham, " might have been read in one of
the ancient dialects of Babylon as Shishaki,"
and if this be so the transposition of letters
becomes merely a remarkable coincidence.
Sheshach then stands for Ur, the ancient
capital, and Babel or Babylon for the then
modern one, and the prophet may thus be
taken as referring to the whole national life
from its birth in lowly Ur of the Ohaldees to
the day when he wrote of the great city of
Babylon his words of warning and reproof;
but here again on going to the fountain head,
we find the whole reference to be in the
present tense. Eawlinson, too, only tells of
what "might have been," and we certainly
seem to need a firmer foundation than this
possibility. The two alternatives before us
are equally perplexing. "Would any writer
be so cautious and reticent one moment,
OR CIPHER-WRITING 23
SO plainly outspoken the next, if liis object
all through was prudent suppression of a
name ? On the other hand, if the two names
refer to two entirely different places — as, for
example, Winchester and London — is it not
a most extraordinary coincidence that the
letters in the name of each city are precisely
the same, and that while the one has them
in one order, the other has them exactly
reversed ? What proportion, according to the
law of chances, of millions to one would be
necessary to express the likelihood of such a
transposition occurring? It was absolutely
necessary to refer to this Sheshach question,
since, as we have stated, this passage in the
Bible is claimed by some enthusiastic crypto-
logists and commentators as the earliest
example of a cipher, and now, perforce, we
can but leave it to the reader to derive such
benefit and comfort from the matter as he
may.
This simple reversal of the alphabet, A
24 CRYPTOGRAPHY
representing Z, B being the equivalent of Y,
etc., is far too evident to have any crypto-
grammic vahie, as the changed value of the
letters is very quickly perceived. The his-
torian Suetonius tells us that Julius Ceesar,
in forwarding his dispatches, changed the
positions of the letters by four places, making
D stand for A, P for M, and so on ; but this,
though a trifle better, was still the most
elementary work. Scaliger, we see, in refer-
ring to it, styles it a "pure absurdity*'; yet
one repeatedly finds in the " agony column "
communications based on this or some equally
simple shifting on of the letters.
Polybius tells us that ^neas Tacitus had
collected together twenty different kinds of
secret writing, some of them having been in
use before his time, while others he devised
himself. Herodotus mentions that one
Demaratus, a commander of the forces,
wrote his communications on wooden tablets,
and then had them smoothly coated over
OR CIPHER-WRITING 25
with wax, as though they were merely blank
surfaces for the stylus. Those who received
them, and who were in the secret, removed
this upper coating, and the message stood
revealed. But this, it will be noted, was
scarcely secret writing, any more than a
letter fastened down in an envelope to-day
becomes secret writing by the process. It
is but hidden writing, and when the wax of
the tablet or the covering surface of the
envelope are removed the writing has lost all
its secrecy. Most of the ancient methods of
secret communication were of this nature.
One plan gravely commended was to shave a
slave's head, and then to write upon it any
message one might wish to send. "When the
hair was sufficiently grown to conceal the
matter, the man was dispatched to the person
with whom it was desired to communicate,
and he in turn shaved the victim and read off
the message. In these days when fifty miles
an hour is considered far too slow for business.
26 CR YPTOGRAPHY
and when we read at breakfast in our news-
paper tlie details of the insurrection that
broke out yesterday in Central Africa, such a
method of communication would be voted al-
together too dilatory, and we cannot help
feeling — such- is the force of nineteenth-century
habit — that even in those good old times, when
nobody seemed to be at all in a hurry, the
message that could afford to wait while a new
crop of hair was growing could not have been
of any great urgency, or they would surely |
have found a less leisurely way of dispatch-
ing it.
Charlemagne kept up a private correspon-
dence in cipher- writing, and the secret alpha-
bet used by Alfred the Great may still be
seen in the Bodleian Library. We also, dur-
ing the fifth century, find Pharamond and
other reigning princes utilising various more
or less satisfactory systems of cryptography,
but in those early days those who could either
write or read with any ease were but few in
OR CIPHER-WRITING 27
number. "When we come to the Middle Ages
a perfect epidemic ran round Europe, and
cryptograpliia, or, as it was sometimes termed,
polygraphia or steganographia, had its en-
thusiastic votaries in every land. Those who
care for the archaeological side of the subject
may refer to the writings of Palatino, dating
1540, of Bellaso in 1553, and of Glanburg in
1560. Should this not have damped their
ardour, they may next take a course of Porta,
Trithemius, Cardanus, Walchius, Bibliander,
Schottus, Selenus, Herman Hugo, Niceron,
Oaspi, Tridenci, Comiers, La Fin, Dalgarno,
Buxtorff, Wolfgang, and Falconer. Even then,
if they so wish it, are open to them the writ-
ings of Eidel, Soro, Amman, Breitkampt,
Conradus, De Yaines, Lucatello, Kircher, and
not a few others ; while for those who do not
care to dig their knowledge out of such dusty
worm-eaten tomes William Blair is the very
thing, though we would fain hope that ere we,
and they, reach the last of these present
28 CRYPTOGRAPHY
pages they will feel tliat they have derived
thence as much eDlightenment as they need.
As many of these mediaeval authors had a
great knack of conveying, with scant or no
acknowledgment, the labour of others into
their own store, there would be little profit
in referring at any length to their works ; we
will therefore select but two, Trithemius and
Porta, for any comment.
Trithemius, the first in time of these two
old writers, was an able Benedictine. He
was Abbot of Spanheim, and his was the
first really elaborate treatise on cryptogram-
mic writing. The first printed edition was
published in Frankfort in the year 1606, and
a copy of this is preserved in the Bodleian
Library ; a second edition was issued from the
same press two years later. Its title is of
the elaborate character that is characteristic
of books of that period. " SteganograpMa :
hoc est ars i^er occvltam Scriptvram animi svi
voluntatem ahsentihvs aperiendi certa : avthore
OR CIPHER-WRITING 29
reverendissimo et darissimo vivo Joanne Tru
fheniio, Ahhate Sjpanheimensi et Magice Natur-
aUs Magistro perfedissimo,^* His method was
a somewhat curious one, as he compiled
many folios full of devout sentences through
the use of which quite other and mundane
matters could be conveyed. The result was
a vast mass of misdirected energy. Unfor-
tunately, to these he added a number of extra-
ordinary characters, which he designated spiri-
tus diurni and spiritus nocturni, the result
being that lie was accused of dabbling in the
black art and holding converse with demons.
He was therefore brought to trial for these
magical incantations, and had a very narrow
escape of being burnt. He had also the misfor-
tune to incur the lavish abuse of Jerome
Cardan, himself the author of a system of
cryptography, and was by him relentlessly
attacked and hounded down.
Dr. Dee, who was himself under the ban
as a follower of divers uncanny arts that were
30 CRYPTOGRAPHY
supposed to bring him into closer relation
Avitli demons tlian was held to be at all justi-
fiable, was a great admirer of the work of
Trithemius. He was often sent abroad on
more or less secret service by the Ministers of
Queen EHzabeth, and we find him writing from
Antwerp on February 16, 1563, to Sir William
Cecil for permission to extend his stay in that
city. He was mainly desirous of doing so,
as he was arranging for the publication at
Antwerp of a book of his own, the Monas
Hierogli/phica, issued in the following year ;
but as his private affairs were scarcely a
sufficiently good reason why he should be
maintained there at the expense of the State,
he adds that he is there able to gather much
together that would be of gain to the nation.^
Amongst other reasons for staying on, he
writes : '*' Allready I have purchased one
boke, for wch a Thowsand Orownes have
^ III reference to this appeal of Dr. Dee, Cecil's memor-
andum is extant stating that the applicant's time beyond
the sea had been well spent.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 3I
been by others offred and yet could not be
obteyned. A boke for wliicli many a lerned
man liath long sowght and dayley yet doth
seeke : Whose use is greater than the fame
therof is spred: The name therof to you is
not unknowne: The title is on this Wise —
Steganographia Joannis Tritemij : wherof in
both the editions of his Polygraphia mention
is made, and in his epistles, and in sundry
other mens bokes : A boke for your honor,
or a Prince, so meet, so needfull and commo-
dious, as in humayne knowledge none can be
meeter or more behopefull. Of this boke
the one half, with contynuall Labor and watch
the most part of X dayes have I copyed oute :
And now T stand at the Courtesye of a noble-
man of Hungarie for writing furth the rest:
who hath promised me leave therto after he
shall perceyve that I may remayne by him
longer (with the leave of my prince) to
pleasure him also with such points of Science
as at my hands he requireth. Thys boke,
32 CRYPTOGRAPHY
eytlier as I now have yt, or hereafter shall
have yt, fi^Hy whole and p'fit (yf it pleas you
to accept my present) I give unto your honor
as the most precyous juell that I have yet of
other mens travailes recovered."
The account is not quite a clear one, as he
declares that he has bought the book, though
he does not say that he himself gave a thou-
sand crowns for it, and yet he appears to
have copied it by the courtesy of the noble-
man possessing it, and who certainly does
not seem to have sold it to him. From the
price Dee puts on the book, it is evident that
it was a manuscript copy. The book was
long kept from the knowledge of the general
public, the first printed copy not being issued
until forty-three years after this letter of
Dee to Cecil. The direct gift to Cecil we
may perhaps, without being wanting in
charity, regard as a gentle bribe to be al-
lowed to stay on at Antwerp for the ad-
vancement of his private business ends.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 33
Batista Porta, a Neapolitan writer, com-
piled five books on ciphers, " lies Notes
occultes des lettreSy'^ tliat were published in
Strasbourg in the year 1606, and he also
devotes one of the " Bookes " of his " Natural
Majick" to the art of invisible writing. The
edition before us as we write is dated 1658,
the title page stating that the book was
*' printed by Thomas Young and Samuel
Speed, and are to be sold at the Three
Pigeons, and at the Angel in St. Paul's
Churchyard.'* In this volume, divided into
twenty sections, or books as he calls them,
are " set forth all the Kiches and Delights of
the Natural Sciences," and the result is a
strange medley indeed. His first book deals
with " the Causes of Wonderful things," a
sufiiciently extensive subject in • itself and
including " the Nature of Magick," the influ-
ence of the stars, and so forth. Other sec-
tions deal with the transmutation of metals,
the wonders of the load-stone, the beauti-
c
34 CRYPTOGRAPHY
fjing of women, etc., and the sixteenth con-
cerns itself with "invisible writing." His
last book is " of the Chaos," and here we find
a promiscuous mass of matter that either
would not fit in happily in any of the other
books, or which he happened to have over-
looked, or upon which he had gained fuller
information than when dealt with in its
original position. This chaotic section in-
cludes such diverse matters as how to make
foul water drinkable, and how to distil it
from the air, the art of altering one's face so
that one's friends are deceived, how to make
stones grow of themselves, how to make an
instrument whereby we may hear sounds at
a great distance, how to detect frauds in
impostors, and much else of more or less
chaotic interest and value.
The sixteenth book, " wherein are handled
secrets and undiscovered notes," commences
with the statement that *^ there are two sorts
of secret marks, which they vulgarly call
OR CIPHER-WRITING 35
syfers : one of visible marks, and is worbliy of
a treatise by itself ; anotlier of secret marks,
whereof I liave attempted to say sometliing in
this pi^esent Volume, and what are the con-
sequents thereof, for the use of great Men and
Princes, that take care for things absent, and
write to some man that knows the invention.
I shall set down some examples plainly : but
these things and the consequences of them
must be faithfully concealed, lest by growing
common amongst ordinary peoplew they be dis-
respected." Our old author here clearly felt
the difficulty of the position he had got himself
into ; on the one hand thinking to impart
much curious and useful knowledge, and on
the other hand in the act of doing so feeling
its publication a contradiction vitiating all his
labour. Even Natural Magick fails to show
how the frank exposition and the careful
concealment of secret matters can be simul-
taneously accomplished. This doubtless, too,
was one potent reason why the folios of Tri-
36 CRYPTOGRAPHY
themius remained in manuscript some fifty
years.
Porta's division of his subject into visible
and secret marks looks at first sight a little
puzzling, for unless visible marks carry a
secret significance they are in this connexion
valueless. We soon find, hoAvever, on reading
las book, that what he means by visible marks
is the use of letters, figures, or other signs
that are evident enough to all beholders
though theii* significance is unknown, and
these, as he says, are worthy of a treatise to
themselves. In the present work he deals
almost entirely with communications that are
secret through their invisibility, until some
chemical application, the action of heat or of
light, or other external cause, bring them to
view. He, in fact, begins his first ch'apter
with the words : " There are many and almost
infinite ways to write things of necessity, that
the Characters shall not be seen, unless you
dip them into waters, or put them near the
OR CIPHER-WRITING 3?
fire, or rub them with dust, or smeer them
over."
His first recipe is a double-barrelled one.
It is to be employed " if you desire that letters
not seen may be read, or such as are seen may
be hid." This is a very artful state of things
to briug about. The enemy or other un-
authorized person into whose hands the paper
fell would be put off the scent by reading a
communication that was of no value or sig-
nificance to them, while the person to whom
it was really sent w^ould take steps first to
remove the visible writing, and then to make
a second communication, written between the
lines of the first, tell out its story by the ap-
plication of a second preparation. The pro-
cedure is as follows : " Let Vitriol soak in
Boyling water : when it is dissolved, strain it
so long till the water grow clear : with that
liquor write upon paper : when they are dry
they are not seen. Moreover, grinde burnt
straw with Vinegar : and what you will write
38 CRYPTOGRAPHY
in tlie spaces between tlie former lines, de-
scribe at large. Then boyl sowre Galls in
white Wine, wet a spunge in the liquor : and
when yon have need, wipe it upon the paper
gently, and wet the letters so long until the
native black colour disappear, but the former
colour, that was not seen, may be made ap-
parent. Now I will show in what liquors
paper must be soaked to make letters to be
seen. As I said. Dissolve Vitriol in water :
then powder Galls finely, and soak them in
water : let them stay there twenty-four hours :
filtre them through a linen cloth, or something
else, that may make the water clear, and make
letters upon the paper that you desire to have
concealed : send it to your Friend absent :
when you would have them appear, dip them
in the first liquor, and the letters will presently
be seen." The materials, it may be noted, are
fairly readily procurable : an important point
to consider.
Porta also suggests that we may dissolve
OR CIPHER-WRITING 39
alum ill water and write with it upon linen
and the like, declaring that when this writing
is dry it will be invisible. When you would
render it visible, it will suffice to soak the
sheet or napkin in water. The fabric will
appear darker where it has not been touched
by the alum solution, so that the message will
appear in letters of white. After divers other
prescriptions, in which litharge, citron-juice,
goat's fat, juniper, and various other ingre-
dients figure, he winds up his first section,
" On how a writing dip'd in divers Liquors
may be read," by the assertion, " there are
many such arts, too tedious to relate," and he
then proceeds to his next section, how letters
may be made visible by the action of heat.
" If you write," he tells us, " with the juice
of Citrons, Oranges, Onyons, or almost any
sharp things, if you make it hot at the fire,
their acrimony is presently discovered : for
they are undigested juices, whereas they are
detected by the heat of the fire, and then they
4o CRYPTOGRAPHY
sliow fortli those colours tliat they would show
if they were rq^e. If you write with a sowre
Grape that would be black, or with Cervices : ^
when you hold them to the fire they are con-
cocted, and will give the same colour they
would in due time give upon the tree, when
they were ripe. Juice of Cherries, added to
Calamus, will make a green : to sowbread a
red : so divers juices of Fruits will show divers
colours by the fire. By these means Maids
sending and receiving love-letters, escape from
those that have charge of them. There is also
a kind of Salfc called Ammoniac : this powdred
and mingled with water, will write white
letters, and can hardly bo distinguished from
the paper, but hold them to the fire, and they
will shew black."
Porta has also a suggestion for making
communications that cannot be read until
^ The fruits of tlie Service-tree, Pyrus torminalis, of a
greenisli-brown colour, and of rough acid flavour until
they are mellowed by frost.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 4 1
tlie paper be burnt upon wliicli they are
made. He arrives at this in the following
fashion : " Take the sharpest Vinegar and the
white of an Egg : in these steep Quick-silver
and stir it well : and with that mixture make
Letters upon the paper : burn the paper in the
fire, and the letters will remain unburnt."
The result of this will be that the paper will
be black and the letters white. This sounds
better in theory than it would probably work
out in practice. We are all familiar with the
fact that even when a letter written in or-
dinary ink is burnt, we may often still be able
to read on its charred surface portions of the
writing, but we know also that the act of
burning twists and curls the paper up so that
much of the writing is out of our sight, while
the whole thing is so brittle that a touch may
break it up, and any attempt at straightening
out the sheet would be wholly futile.
Porta has various ideas as to developing in-
visible writing by means of dust or soot; by
42 CRYPTOGRAPHY
Avriting wibli vinegar, gum solution, tlie milk of
tlie fig tree and various other ingredients, and
then rendering the message visible by rubbing
these substances upon it. The milk of the fig
tree was not readily accessible as we were writ-
ing these lines, so of its efficacy we can say
nothing, but a letter which we forthwith pro-
ceeded to write with vinegar at once became
clearly legible when soot was rubbed gently
over its surface. Our au.thor tells us that
" there is also an Art that one would not imagine
to write upon Chrystal ; for being all transpar-
ent no man will dream of it, and the letters
may lie hid therein. Do it thus. Dissolve Gum
Arabick in water, or Gum Tragacanth, that it
may be cleer ; and when it is well dissolved, it
will not foul the Chrystal if you write upon it
or upon a Gup or Glass, for when the letters are
dry they are invisible. No man will imagine it,
if a cup be sent to one in prison, or a Glass full
of wine : when he would see the letters, rub
burnt straw or paper upon it, and the letters
OR CIPHER-WRITING 43
will presently be seen." This also we brought
to the test of experiment, writing upon a glass
bottle with a solution of gum-arabic. The
writing when dry was absolutely invisible. On
rubbing burnt paper over the writing we were
unable to get any satisfactory result, but on
wiping this off and using soot instead we at
once got the wording very sharply defined in
black on the transparent glass, the experiment
being entirely successful. At the same time
there seem to be practical difficulties ; one can
hardly imagine a prisoner saying, " Would you
kindly oblige me with a pinch of soot or a
handful of straw and a match ? " At all
events we can hardly imagine his getting
them.
A curious side-light and reference to " the
good old days " is shown again in Porta's in-
structions as to how secret messages may be
sent by means of eggs, for he tells us that
" Eggs are not stopt by the Papal Inquisition,
and no fraud is suspected to be in them."
44 CRYPTOGRAPHY
Hence prisoners niiglit perchance receive eggs
from tlieir friends, and with them messages
from the outside world. However this may be,
it is at least a pleasant picture. One has al-
ways so imagined the victims of the Inquisition
going melancholy mad in dripping dungeons,
or shrieking at each turn of the rack and
thumb-screw, that the idea of the man sitting
down in peace to his lunch, and having a new-
laid Qgg with it, comes as quite a welcome
surprise.
Porta is also great on the subject of devis-
ing means whereby written characters, freely
legible at first, might presently disappear; but
one can scarcely imagine such a thing as being
of any great value. It might at times be an
advantage if promises made on the eve of an
election, the former sentiments of recreant and
turncoat politicians, or the fervent protesta-
tions of the lover lavishly poured out ere the
breach of promise action had even been deemed
a possibility, could somehow be forgotten ; and
OR CIPHER-WRITING 45
tliere might of course be occasions when some
damning document might be laid up in the
archives of the enemy for use at some critical
moment, and when its production after all as a
blank sheet of paper might well be the differ-
ence between a traitor's death and safe deliver-
ance from the noose, the firing party at ten
paces, or the convict hulk. Ordinarily, how-
ever, when one has mastered the meaning of a
communication, there are many safer and more
expeditious ways of disposing of it than trust-
ing to the corroding or paling action of any
chemical to obliterate its secrets. In the
seclusion of the diplomatist's study the glowing
hearth, or in the bustle of the bivouac the
roaring camp fire, will expeditiously enough
reduce to ashes any paper that has fulfilled its
purpose.
In like spirit of adverse criticism we would
deal with the reverse of this, "that invisible
letters after some time shall become visible and
show themselves." We are told that " if one
46 CRYPTOGRAPHY
write with juice of Citrons or Orilnges on
Copper or Brass, and leave tins on for twenty
days tlie letters will appear green upon the
place ; the same may be done many other ways,
namely, by dissolving Salt Ammoniac in water,
and writing with it upon Brass, the place will
sooner appear of verdigreese colour." It is
sufficiently evident that it is rarely indeed that
a delay of twenty or any other number of days
is a desideratum. One ordinarily desires to
Fig. 1.
know at once any communication that any one
sees fit to make to us, and should especially
desire to do so if we knew that the secrecy and
mystery attaching to it was an indication of its
grave importance.
The two or three examples that Porta gives
" of letters on divers things which, though
OR CIPHER-WRITING 47
tliej be visible yet tbe Eeader will be deceived
by tlieir secret device/' are of no great value.
One of his hints is to write on parchment, and
then put it to the fire or candle, when it will
crumple up and in the contorted state of the
parchment the written matter will be so twisted
about that it will be unreadable. The harsh-
ness of the fire-tried material upon which it is
inscribed will resist any attempt at forcible
flattening out, so that even if we detect the
presence of a communication it is not get-at-
able. But " if one desires to read what is in it
let him lay it on moyst places or sprinkle it
gently with water, and it will be dilated again
and all the wrinkles will be gone, and it will
appear as it did at first, that you may read the
letters upon it without any hindrance."
Porta also refers to the ancient expedient,
ascribed to Archimedes and mentioned by
Plutarch and other ancient authors, of wHting
on a strip of paper wrapped round a stick.
T\7o sticks of equal diameters must be sup-
48
CRYPTOGRAPHY
plied, one being held by the one correspondent
and the second by the other. A long thin
strip of paper must now be wrapped spirally
Fig. 2.
round one of these cylinders so that the edges
are just in contact throughout its length, and
on these edges, so that a portion of each letter
LAI Ltl IVIL iUUlM
rv^rcT K/ir cnnM
Fig. 3.
comes on each side, the required communica-
tion is written. The paper is then unrolled
and forwarded to the holder of the second
stick, and he, on rolling the strip around this.
OR CIPHER- IVklTJNG 4.^
is able to read the message with great facility.
The theory is that no one would take any
notice of these marks on the edges of the
paper, but on putting the matter to the test of
experiment we found no difficulty, without
any wrapping round stick or ruler, in reading
the message that we had previously written.
Half of each letter is seen, and that is quite
sufficient to serve as a clue. If any of our
readers like to test this statement for them-
selves, they will readily find that if they place a
piece of blank paper along any of the lines of
[XPCCTMCSOON-r
Fig. 4.
this printed page so that half of each letter is
hidden the remaining half quite suffices for its
identification.
The message we wrote was, " Expect me
soon." Fig. 1 shows the spirally wrapped
D
50 CRYPTOGRAPHY
strip of paper and the message written on
its edges. Fig. 3 represents tlie strip wlien
unrolled from the pencil and flattened out
ready for dispatch; while Fig. 2 shows how
the message would look if the receiver, not
knowing that a pencil had to be employed,
tried wrapping it round a ruler. Fig. 3 has a
■|VOr BE/ABLE/..
TliiVDTHlS
Fig. 5.
decidedly tell-tale appearance, anyway ; but if
any unauthorized person into whose hands
this strip came would just take the trouble
to divide it in half lengthwise, and place, as
in Fig. 4, the two lettered edges together,
the message is at once as legible as any
orthodox rewinding round a pencil could
make it»
OR CIPHER-WRITING 5 1
A very mucli better way of work-
ing this spiral paper metliod is to ^V
write the message, not along the 7 V
edges, but right across the strips U\>
themselves. Having wound our strip ^9)^*
of paper round our ruler, we wrote <v\\
as follows upon it : " Get another
roller the same size, or you will not
be able to read this communication."
The appearance of our message-bearing
sta:ff may be seen in Fig. 5, while
Fig. 6 shows a portion of the strip
as it looked when unwound and ready
for sending off to our correspondent.
It will at once be seen how far more
puzzling this is than the strip shown
in Fig. 3.
Some of the material we find in
Porta's chapters can scarcely be con-
sidered to come within the category
of "invisible writing" at all, since
the methods he adopts are akin to
A?
Fig. 6.
52 CR yPTOGRAPU Y
the ordinary letter put in an envelope that
we have already cited. He tells, for in-
stance, how a communication was once sent
within a loaf, and in another case in the
interior of a dead hare ; how others, again,
have safely brought letters concealed in their
girdles, beneath the soles of their feet, or in
their scabbards or quivers ; how pigeons may
be used as messengers,^ or intelligence shot
into camp or fortress by arrows or guns. He
quotes numerous instances of this sort of
thing from ancient writers ; from Theophras-
tus, Africanus, Herodotus, Ovid, Ca3sar, Pliny,
and others.
He does not forget to refer to the slave
with shaven head, but he also recognises
that it may oftentimes be desirable that an
underling conveying a message should be in
ignorance of the fact that he is being thus
^ A great use was made of pigeons as messengers daring
the Franco-German war, and the pigeon-loft of to-daj
is as much an item of war strength as a Maxim gun.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 53
employed. Had he this knowledge, he might
possibly desert to the enemy, or be filled
with such exaltation of spirit at the import-
ance of his mission as to betray himself and
awaken suspicion. If he fell into the hands
of the enemy, he might be tempted by fair
promises, or affrighted by threats, to reveal
his mission ; whereas, if he were unconscious
of it, his whole manner would be so frankly
guileless as to avert suspicion, and he would
much more probably pass on his way unchal-
lenged. He was, therefore, given no letter
to conceal; nothing was handed to him to
excite his interest or awaken his suspicions;
but his food was drugged, and, while he was
under the influence of an opiate, his own
broad back was the surface utilised as the
sheet whereon to inscribe the message re-
quired to be transmitted. This method is re-
ferred to by Porta, but it dates back far into
ancient history, — Ovid, for instance, alluding
to it.
54 CRYPTOGRAPHY
Speaking in a general way, but at the
same time as the outcome of considerable ex-
periment, we should be inclined to say that
the various compounds suggested by Porta
and many other writers as inks, invisible
until developed by the action of light, or of
heat, or the washing over of another solu-
tion, are of no great practical value ; while
the materials, though in most cases common
enough, may not always be forthcoming.
The commander of an advanced post in a
hostile land, who was desirous of communi-
cating with the base of operations, or with
the leader of a relief party, might be a thou-
sand miles from the nearest place where
chloride of cobalt, for example, was pro-
curable.
A great practical disadvantage in the use
of such materials is that, as they flow from
the pen as clear and colourless as pure water,
it is very difficult to see what one is writing;
and so soon as tlie writing dries, as it very
1
OR CIPHER-WRITING 55
quickly does, any cliance of correction or re-
consideration is gone, and one can only trust
to memory as to what was really put down
at all. Such a message, too, on its receipt,
might easily be mislaid or torn up as a piece
of valueless paper; while, on the other hand,
any special solicitude for its preservation
would at once excite comment and suspicion.
Any person who entertained such suspicion
would probably be well aware that heat was
one of the most effectual means of render-
ing a secret message visible, and on its
application the message would stand forth
revealed to quite other eyes than those for
whom it was intended.
Some few of these simple preparations we
may refer to ; as those who are curious in
such matters might, when once put on the
track, very naturally desire to test them for
themselves. Any one so doing should be
careful to use a clean quill pen; and as
some, at least, of the materials are poisonous,
56 CRYPTOGRAPHY
some little discretion. Any one, for instance,
who leaves a clear, colourless solution in a
teacup or tumbler for an hour or two in
kitchen or dining-room may very possibly be
called upon by the coroner to explain; while
attendance at the funeral would be another
grievous break in the time devoted to this
interesting study.
As a familiar example of the chemicals
affected by light we may mention nitrate of
silver. Any communication made by a solu-
tion of this would remain invisible until such
time as exposed to daylight. On this ex-
posure, the writing would reveal itself in dark
chocolate-brown, and, once made visible, re-
mains so. The writing should, of course, be
done by artificial light; and we have found
that a proportion of one of nitrate to fifteen
of distilled water makes about the most satis-
factory mixture. If, instead of placing the
paper in the daylight we hold it over a
vessel containing sulphate of ammonia the
OR CIPHER-WRITING 57
writing will appear with a metallic and silvery
brilliancy.
If we make a solution of chloride of cobalt,
it will be of a pale pink in tint; but the
colour is so slight that in writing with the
fluid it appears colourless on the paper, and
there is absolutely no trace of anything to
be seen. On warming the paper before a
good strong fire the characters appear of a
clear bluish-green; but they disappear again
as the paper cools, a matter of some five
minutes or so. The effect can, of course, be
reproduced as often as we choose to apply the
necessary heat. If we use acetate of cobalt
instead, the warming of the paper brings out
the communication in a clear and beautiful
blue colour.
Equal parts of sulphate of copper and sal-
ammoniac dissolved in water give a solution
of a beautiful turquoise-blue tint. This, if
applied at all strongly, dries on the paper
of a pale greenish colour, a tint too weak
58 CRYPTOGRAPHY
to be legible, tbougli not too weak to be
noticeable on a scrutiny. On warming the
paper on wliicb any communication has been
made by this agency the writing appears of
a clear yellow, but on the cooling of the paper
it disappears. The juice from an onion that
has been macerated in a mortar will also pro-
duce the same effect, the characters written
by means of it being at first invisible, but
afterwards clearly legible and of a yellow
colour.
If we wish to have a message that will
remain indelible when once developed, we have
the materials ready to hand by dissolving oil
of vitriol in soft water in the proportion of
a fluid ounce of the former to a pint of the
latter. Strong chemical action is set up, and
great heat evolved. The solution should be
well stirred, and then allowed to cool, and
it is then ready for use. Anything written
by this agency is in theory supposed to be
quite invisible until warming at the fire brings
OR CIPHER-WRITING 59
it out a clear black, but in practice we found,
with solutions of varying strengths, that the
writing, though at first invisible, became on
drying quite perceptible, and looking as though
written with whitewash or Chinese white on
the paper. On a very cursory examination
it might escape notice, but the slightest scru-
tiny reveals it. The difficulty is that if we
use a strong solution the writing can be read
in the white characters, though it, on the
application of heat, develops into a clear
and excellently legible black ; while if we use
a solution so weak as to escape notice when
applied to the paper, it also develops a very
weak colour on the application of warmth.
The proportions we have given are perhaps
the best, but the result in any case is hardly
satisfactory if absolute invisibility is our ob-
ject, and of course nothing short of this is
worth anything.
Many other chemical methods might be
mentioned, but their value after all does not
60 CRYPTOGRAPHY
appear to be very great. Nothing but per-
sonal investigation is of any real use. One
finds over and over again things commended
by various writers that entirely break down
when brought to the vital test of actual
experiment.
CHAPTER 11
Ancient use o£ arbitrary symbols — Tyrouiaii abbreviatious —
Early works on shorthand— Excessive abbreviation of
inscriptions on coins, etc. — Telegram-English — Mason-
marks — Rise of cipher-writing in England — Clarendon's
"History of the Rebellion" — Battle of Xaseby — Royal
correspondence captured and deciphered — Published by
Parliament — Weighted naval signal-codes — Charles I. a
great expert in cryptography — Use of nnlles or non-
significants — Numerical ciphers — Mediaeval inscription
without vowels — Ciphers of Queen Henrietta and Sir
Ralph Yerney— Great use of cipher at troublous periods
of history — The " Century of Inventions " of the Marquis
of Worcester— Birth of the steam-engine — Dedication of
his labours to the nation — B^s numerous suggestions
for cryptograms — The " disk " cryptogram — Principle
modified to sliding strip — Bead alphabet — Heraldic
representation of colours in black and white — The
*' string " cipher — Bacon a cryptographic enthusiast —
His essentials of a good cipher — -—His highest perfec-
tion of a cipher — His plan cumbrous and unsatisfactory
— ^A Trithemian example — Elizabethan arbitrary mark
ciphers — No real mystery in them.
A METHOD adopted by the ancient writers
of representing words by arbitrary marks
was said to have been first introduced by the
61
62 CRYPTOGRAPHY
old poet Ennius. Maecenas, Cicero, Seneca the
elder, Philargirus, Tyro, and many otlier
Avriters commended and employed these marks.
By the time of Seneca thirteen thousand of
these characters were in use. They are or-
dinarily termed Tyronian. Thousands of these
Tyronian abbreviations and symbols may be
seen in the writings of Valerius Probus,
Paulus Diaconus, Goltzius, and other authors.
So completely during the Middle Ages did they
answer the purpose of secret writing that an
old copy of a psalter found inscribed in these
characters was ignorantly entitled, " PsaUeriu)7i
in Lingua Armenica " ; and Pope Julius the
Second employed several learned men without
success to decipher it. This was originally
but a system of shorthand, and it only grew
into a mystery when the key that unlocked
it was lost.
The "Jrs Scribendi characteris,^^ written
about the year 1412, is the oldest system of
shorthand extant, while the first English
OR CIPHER-WRITING 63
book on the subject did not apjDear until
1588. It was written by one Timotlij Bright,
and entitled " Characterie, or the Art of
Short, Swift, and Secret Writing." The
notion of cryptography is present in this title.
If a man employs a system of abbreviated
writing because it is short or swift, it is to him
but a matter of convenience and a gain of
time; but if he adopts it because it is secret,
an entirely different motive comes in. A man
who writes in Pitman or any other widely-
known system of shorthand, or who adopts
any of the modern telegraph code-books that
compress a long sentence into a single arbi-
trary word, is no disciple of cryptography
therein ; but if he, like Pepys in his famous
diary, adopts a secret code because on the
whole he prefers to keep his affairs private,
his shorthand stands on quite a different
footing to that of the first man. Such codes
have their dangers. Not only is one exposed,
hke Pepys, to the risk of having all one's
64 CR YPTOGRAPH Y
matters laid bare, but tliere is also the pro-
bability of sucli a fiasco as occurred within
our own knowledge, where a man kept his
business and family memoranda by a short-
hand system that he himself devised, the result
being that at his death his affairs got at once
into a state of utter confusion that they never
rallied from, and there can be but little doubt
that much property was lost to the family
from want of all clue to it.
An ancient form of writing employed
amongst the Romans w^as the excessive ab-
breviation of w^ords in inscriptions on statues,
coins, and so forth ; but this w^as not for
secrecy. Any one caring for examples of the
sort of thing Avill find abundant illustrations
in such old tomes as the '^Lexicon Diploma-
ticum^^ of Walther or the '^ Siglarium Bo-
manum " of Gerrard. In fact, the D.Gr. and
Fid. Def. on our present money supplies us
with a good example of the curtailment neces-
sary where one desires to get a good deal of
OR CIPHER- WRITING 65
material in a very circumscribed space. A still
better example may be seen in the coinage
of George III., where we may find such
concentrated information as the following :
M • B • F • ET • H • REX -F-D-B-ET'L-D-
S • R • I • A • T • ET • E •. This suggests a sort
of mince or hash of the alphabet, but with
due amplification and clothing of these bare
letters, we arrive at last at " Magnce Britan-
nice, Franci'ce eb Hibernice Rex, Fidel Defensor,
Brunnovici et Liinehergi Dux, Sacrl Bomani
(Imperii Archithesaurarius et Elector^
We may say parenthetically that in all
cryptogrammic communications the message
or other matter should be abbreviated as far
as is consistent with intelligibility. One
should cultivate for this purpose the style
of telegram-English. It makes less labour
■ and less chance of error creeping in for the
sender, less time in unravelling for the re-
ceiver, and less handle for any unauthorized
reader to lay hold of. This last, as we shall
66 CRYPTOGRAPHY
see wlien we come presently to consider the
decipherment of a mysterious message, is a
point of very considerable importance.
Fig. 7.
On old buildings we may sometimes see
what are called mason-marks cut upon the
stones. It has been suggested that these
had originally a symbolic meaning known
OR CIPHER-WRITING 67
only to those initiated in the ancient craft of
freemasonry. Some authorities tell us that
they are almost as old as the human race,
that they probably had in early times a
meaning that is now lost, that they were long
regarded with a certain reverence, and that
an essential rule for their formation was
that they should contain at least one angle.
We have reprinted in Fig. 7 divers examples
of these marks from various ancient buildings.
There is no doubt that all of them contain
at least one angle ! The more prosaic ex-
planation of these marks is that they served
to denote the work of each mason employed
on any important building, that if the pay-
ment was by piecework such marking pre-
vented dispute, and that if the work were badly
done or any error made it was at once seen
where blame should be imputed. Each mason
had his distinctive mark, and many ancient
registers of these are extant. The enthusiasts
who see in these marks some mystic cult claim
68 CRYPTOGRAPHY
as one proof that thej may be found even on
the blocks of sfcone that complete the Pyra-
mids; but the more prosaic student might
point out that this after all only indicates
very ancient usage, and that it was as neces-
sary in the time of Chofo to detect careless
workmanship as when Salisbury or Amiens
cathedrals were being erected. Whatever may
be the exact truth, we are, we think, at all
events justified in giving them a paragraph
and an illustration in the space at our dis-
posal.
Cipher-writing scarcely makes any real ap-
pearance in English archives until the reign
of Queen Elizabeth. There had been divers
isolated examples, as, for instance, as far back
as Alfred the Great ; but it was scarcely until
the days of the Tudors that we find it really
in vogue. Many examples of this period are
preserved in the British Museum, and in the
troublous days of the first Charles we find
an immense use of it.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 69
Amidst tlie historical documents preserved in
the House of Lords, and brought to light by the
Royal Commission on historical MSS., is the
correspondence of King Charles captured by
the Roundheads at Naseby — a correspondence
which Dr. John Wallis, a distinguished ma-
thematician of those days, analysed and fin-
ally deciphered, and which ultimately cost
the defeated monarch his head.
In Lord Clarendon's " History of the Re-
bellion " (Book IX. vol. ii. p. 508) we read :
" In the end the King was compelled to quit
the field, and to leave Fairfax master of all
his foot, cannons, and baggage, amongst which
was his own cabinet, where his most secret
letters were,^ and letters between the Queen
^ One scarcely sees how, in the turmoil of battle and the
sudden realization of defeat, an incident so untoward
could well be prevented. On board a man-of-war the code
of signals is always kept in a leaden case, perforated with
holes, so that when surrender is imperative the whole
thing is dropped overboard, that it may not fall into the
hands of the enemy. Even this, however, owing to the
death of the responsible officer, or other cause (for in the
70 CRYPTOGRAPHY
and liim, of wliicli they sliortly after made
that barbarous use as was agreable to their
natures, and published them in print : that
is, so much of them as they thought would
asperse either of their Majesties, and improve
the prejudice they had raised up against them ;
and concealed other parts that would have
vindicated them from many particulars with
which they had aspersed them." The battle
of Naseby occurred on Saturday, June 14th,
1645. On June 23rd the House of Commons
resolved " that the several letters and papers
taken at Naseby Field should be referred to
the Committee, to translate the French letters,
decipher those that are not deciphered, and
to sort them." It was also resolved that these
letters and papers should be communicated
to the Committee of both Kingdoms, " to the
heat of action a man may lose his head, though to out-
ward appearance without a scar), is not always an efficient
safeguard. Within a mile of Charing Cross, in the Royal
United Service Museum, may be seen the weighted signal
code of the United States ship Chesapealie, captured on
board that vessel by the British ship Shannon.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 7 1
intent that they may take copies to transmit
into Scotland and to foreign parts, and tbat
the said letters and papers shall be put in
a safe and public hand and place, to the end
that such as desire it may peruse the ori-
ginals." Some sixty letters were captured.
Many on receipt had been already deciphered
by the King or Queen, and the translation
appended to them for greater ease of reading,
Charles I. during the course of the war
composed a great many ciphers, and sonae
of them of very abstruse character. His cele-
brated letter to the Earl of Glamorgan, in
which some very suspicious concessions to the
Catholic party in Ireland were mooted, was
composed entirely of short strokes in different
directions ; but his favourite idea was the
use of numbers, and the Naseby letters were
of this latter type. A good many " dummy "
numbers are introduced, in addition to those
that stand for letters or words. Such dum-
mies are of course intended to throw those
72 CRYPTOGRAPHY
who are unauthorized to read the letters off
the scent, and some such arrangement is very
common as a cryptographic expedient. They
are known as nulles or non-significants also,
and we shall come across numerous examples
of their use ere our book is finished. Various
people are also numbered, and the names of
places that are likely to frequently recur.
This is clearly a great saving of time, as
instead of having to spell out Prince Eupert
or Oxford in full a couple of numbers will
at once express all we want, and of course
the same principle is applied to such con-
stantly wanted words as artillery, regiment,
provisions, and the like. Where words are
of more immaterial and non-betrayal cha-
racter, they are often written in full ; thus,
for instance, we find the Queen writing to the
King as follows : " Mr. Capell nous a fait
voir que cij 27 ' 23 • 52 • 62 • 2S * 45 • 9 * 6G • 4 •
48 • 31 • 10 • 50 • 35 • 33 • 47 • 31 • 8 • 50 que ce
34 • 8 • 27 • 28 • 23 • 17 • 16 • 3 cf^t tout 33 • 8 • 50
OR CIPHER-WRITING 73
• 5 • 62 cesi ;pour qimj si 60 * 4 * 46 • 189 • 18 *
69 • 2 • 70 intantion de donner 62 • 40 • 11 •."
In one letter of the sorely troubled Queen
slie writes tliat matters have so harassed
her, " que je suis extremement tourmantee
die mat de teete qui fait que je mesteray
en syfre ])ar mi autre qui jovois fait moy
mesmey ^ The trusted new hand then comes
and finishes the letter in English. We give
the commencement, and place over the sym-
bols their significance : " Theer beeing hear
S 0
a 47 • 35 •
n
39 •
n
40
e
• 7 •
0 f
35 • 16
KD
• 192 •
tha
hat
31 • 17 • 46
. h
• 31
•21
r
• 51
e a
•7-17
t c
• 45 • 11
r
•50
d i t
5 • 27 • 45 •
w
58 •
i
27-
t
45 •
h h
31 • 31
i s
•27-47
f
•15
a t h
17 • 45 • 31
e
• 7 •
r
50
ffoei]
le: now
f r
16 • 51 •
0
32
m Ho
42 • 164," and so forth. The rest of the
^ " Which causes me to be extreamly troubled with the
headach and to make use of another for the writing in
cypher which J should have done else myselfe." — Parlia-
ment translation.
74 CRYPTOGRAPHY
letter goes on in the same manner, but we
need not repeat the figuring. The transla-
tion of it is that " 260 thought fitt to
speake to him to solicit KD at his arriuall
for to dispatch of 6000 amies to be sent
to ]Sr to arme the Scottch or to imploy any
other way 189 shall thinke good. "WM be-
ing returned hath aduertised 260 that some
Englishe Catholiques in P haue layed their
purses together for supply of armes for 189.
260 doth therefore desire 189 to aduertise
WM of the place where they are to be sent.
189 may write to WM iii the cipher 189
hath with 260.'* This was clearly a docu-
ment to be veiled in cipher. The publica-
tion of these letters by the Parliamentarians
caused great excitement, we are told — a mat-
ter to be scarcely wondered at, — and we can
well imagine that KD and WM, 189 and
260, would take uncommonly good care to
keep the Channel between themselves and the
victorious Puritans.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 75
It will nofc have escaped the notice of
the careful reader that, while some of the
letters in the little extract we have given
are each time they occur represented by the
same number, — H, for instance, being always
31, — others vary, so that N is represented by
39 or 40, T is 45 or 46, and R is 50 or 51.
This changing of the symbol is frequently
resorted to in cryptography, or a little
patient analysis of a communication would
presently throw light upon it. First a small
clue would be gained, and then more and
more would follow. E, for instance, is the
letter that occurs most commonly in English;
therefore, unless the symbols are changed, the
one that occurs oftenest will mean E.^
1 A curious old iDscription over the decalogue in a
country church runs as follows : —
PRSVRYPIIFCTMNYRKPTHSPRCPTSTN.
It is said that the meaning of this was not discovered for
two hundred years ; but if our readers will add to these
letters a sufficient sprinkling of one more letter — "E " —
they will have no difficulty in converting it into " Per-
severe, ye perfect men ; ever keep these precepts ten."
76 CRYPTOGRAPHY
Double L is a common final, so if we find
two similar symbols recurring at ends of
words we may at least think them to be
LL. Of course they may be double SS,
another common termination; but if we as-
sume them for the time being to be LL,
then we may look up ELL. That means
very little, but it is at all events some-
thing to build a theory on. Then we think
of sell, well, fell, and maybe add another
letter to our store. All this of course is
very speculative and tentative, but it is in
this direction that he who would decipher a
cryptogram must proceed.
As another illustration of the number ci-
pher we may instance that used by Sir
llalph Verney. An example of it may be
found in the " Notes of Proceedings of the
Long Parliament," that may be seen in the
valuable reproductions issued by the Cam-
den Society. The editor makes the follow-
ing note : " The following numerals Avritten
OR CIPHER-WRITING 77
in pencil by the hand of Sir Ealph Verney
look like an attempt to take notes in a ci-
pher. The numbers range from 1 to 28. I
add them here in the hope that the in-
genuity of some reader may discover their
meaning." As they evidently entirely non-
plussed him, one hardly sees why he should
somewhat slightingly have called them "an
attempt " to " take notes." If we come
across a slab in the British Museum covered
with arrow-head forms, we may scarcely
legitimately regard it with supercilious in-
difference, or, at best, contemptuous tolera-
tion, as the quaint attempt of some poor
Assyrian ignoramus to record something or
other ; nor should we lament from our
higher level the vainglorious conceit of some
Chinaman who evidently thinks that his queer
characters mean something.
A Mr. Cooper, in the year 1853, succeeded
in deciphering the figures, and they proved
to be rough notes of matters referred to
78 CR YPTOGRAPH V
in Parliament. Tliougli there can be no
doubt of the correctness of the key that has
unlocked their significance, the fact is patent
that Sir Ralph, writing probably against
time and in the midst of many distractions,
was not entirely at home in the cipher he
employed, wrong characters being at times
introduced. The following are examples of
the cipher used by Sir Ealph Verney in
making his memoranda : "28 * 17 — 15 • 22 * 5 •
3 • 14 • 10 • 5 • 8—17 • 2—20 • 15 • 5 • 5 • 15 •
3 • 8—5 • 17—6 • 15—14 • 20 • 17 • 18 • 15 •
13—16 • 28—5 • 7 • 16 • 8—7 • 17 • 18 • 8 •
15." This deciphers into : " No extracts of
letters to be aloued in this House." An-
other one reads : " 5 • 7 • 15—12 • 3 • 16 • 28 •
10 • 15—16 • 8—28 • 17 • 7—10 • 17 • 27 • 15 •
5 . 17—11 • 3 • 15 • 15 • 28 • 7 • 16 • 10 • 7,"
signifying " The prince is noli come to
Greenhich." For the fourth word here we
should probably read either now or not,
the difference in sense being considerable^
OR CIPHER-WRITING
79
the direct contrast between an aflBrmative
and a negative. *' Come to " is in the
cipher run together into "cometo," but this
was probably carelessness rather than craft.
The ingenious and painstaking Mr. Cooper
presently determined that the same numeral
always stands for the same letter, and that
is always a very helpful state of things for
the decipherer. Of course A is not 1, and
B 2, and C 3, and so forth in regular
sequence, as that would be a great deal too
easy an arrangement, so that it remains to
find out what arbitrary arrangement has
been made. On analysis it is found that
the letters are represented by numerals as
follows : — ■
2 = F
8 = S
14 = A
22 = X
3 = R
9 = W
15 = B
25 = Y
4 = K
10 = 0
16 = 1
27 = M
5 = T
11 = G
17 = 0
28 = N
6 = B
12 = P
18 = U
7 = H
13 -D
20 = L
So CR YP TOGRAPHY
In tlie memoranda tliat have come to
light we find no use of 1, 19, 21, 23, 24 or
26, but on the other hand we find that by
chance Yerney had no necessity to use in
anything he wanted the less-commonly em-
ployed letters J, Q, V, or Z ; we may
therefore fairly assume that four of the
missing numbers would be the equivalents
of the four missing letters.
For facility of reading anything already
written, the table we have given, numbers
and then letters, is the most useful; but
if we desired to write anything ourselves, a
table having first letters and then numbers
is of more service. If we want to trans-
late a good stiff piece of Russian, we turn
to the Russian-English half of our diction-
ary ; but if we desire to translate our own
tongue into Russian, then we seek help from
the English-Russian portion of our book.
In the same way the sender of a crypto-
gram uses " ordinary letter-cryptogrammic,"
OR CIPHER^WRITING
8l
while the receiver employs to translate it
the ^' cryptogrammio-ordinary letter " table.
For the purpose of the sender the Verney
table should be as follows : —
A=14
H = 7
0 = 17
B = 6
1=16
P = 12
C = 10
J=l
Q=19
D = 13
K = 4
R = 3
E = 15
L = 20
S = 8
r=2
M = 27
T = 5
G=ll
N = 28
U = 18
V=21
X = 22
Y = 25
Z=23
We have assigned values to the /, Q, F,
and Z, the letters missing in Verney's notes.
If, therefore, we had desired to pass a little
note across the House to Sir Verney,
" Why do you use cipher ? '* we should have
sent him the following : " 9 • 7 • 25—13 • 17—
25 • 17 • 18—18 • 8 • 15—10 • 16 • 12 • 7 • 15 • 3."
His supposititious reply to this supposititious
message we leave to our readers to trans-
late. It ran as follows : " 27 • 16 • 28 • 13—
F
82 CRYPTOGRAPHY
25 • 17 • 18 3—17 • 9 • 28—6 • 18 • 8 • 16 • 28 •
15 • 8 • 8," a remark that shows that while
he felt our note an intrusion, also shows
that we had succeeded in mastering the
cipher he was employing.
We also find a great revival of crypto-
logy during the stormy period that has its
central point in the flight of James II. and
the landing of William III., when plot and
counter-plot sought safety in the use of
cryptograms. The adherents of Mary Queen
of Scots and the followers of the Pre-
tender were naturally also very proficient
in their use.
Edward Somerset, Marquis of Worcester,
published in the year 1633 a little book
called the " Century of Inventions." This
nobleman was greatly addicted to scientific
pursuits, and at the same time was in com-
mand of a large body of troops under
Charles I. He afterwards attached himself
to the suite of Charles II. in exile in
OR CIPHER-WRITING 83
■ France, and being sent over by liim to
London to procure intelligence and supplies,
was speedily detected and put under lock
and key in tlie Tower. He was set at
liberty at tlie Kestoration. His enforced
leisure in tlie Tower gave liim abundant
leisure for study, while bis position as a
man of affairs at so stormy a period ex-
plains how it is that amongst his hundred
inventions not a few deal with the various
methods of secret communication.
tit is of course beside our present mark
to deal wdth the book as a whole. Suffice
it to say that the majority of his inven-
tions are of an entirely practical character,
and the germ of the steam engine of to-
day in all its mighty force and pervading
utility is to be found in his observations.
The closely fitting cover of a vessel in which
he was preparing food in his apartment of
the Tower was suddenly forced off by the
pressure of the confined steam, and he drew
84 CRYPTOGRAPHY
from this tlie suggestion that such a force
might be turned to useful account.
That he himself believed in the value of
his work is quaintly evident, for in the dedi-
cation of his book to the King's most ex-
cellent Majesty, plus Lords and Commons,
on the sensible principle of having more
than one string to his bow, he writes :
*' The Treasures buried under these heads,
both for War, Peace, and Pleasure, being
inexhaustible I beseech you pardon if I say
so : it seems a Vanity but comprehends a
Truth : since no good Spring but becomes
the more plentiful by how much more it is
drawn: and the Spinner to weave his web
is never stinted, but further inforc'd. The
more then that you shall be pleased to make
use of my Inventions the more Inventive
shall you find me, one Invention begetting
still another, and more and more improving
my ability. And as to my heartiness therein
there needs no addition, nor to my readi-
I
OR CIPHER-WRITING 85
ness and spur. Therefore be pleased to
begin, and desist not from commanding me
till I flag in my obedience and endeavours to
Serve my King and Country.
For certainly you'l find me breathless first t'expire
Before my hands grow weary, or my legs do tire."
No. 1 on bis list is " Several Sorts of Seals,
some shewing by scrues, others by gages,
fastening or unfastening all the marks at once.
Upon any of these Seals a man may keep
Accompts of Receipts and Disbursements from
one Farthing to an hundred Millions. By
these Seals likewise any Letter, though written
but in English may be read and understood in
eight several languages, and in English itself
to clean contrary and different sense, unknown
to any but the Correspondent, and not to be
read or understood either, if opened before it
arrive unto him, so that neither Threats, nor
hopes of Eeward, can make him reveal the
secret, the letter having been intercepted by
the Enemy."
86 CRYPTOGRAPHY
JN^o. 2 is a further development, showing how
ten thousand people may use these wonder-
ful seals and yet keep their secrets intact.
No. 3 is "a Cypher or Character so con-
trived, that one line, without returns or cir-
cumflexes, stands for each and every of the
24 letters, and as ready to be made for one
letter as the other," while the inventive
faculty in him, growing, as he declared it
would, by use. No. 4 is *^ this Invention |
refined and so abbreviated that a point
onely showeth distinctly and significantly any
of the 24 letters : and these very points to
be made with two pens, so that no time
will be lost, but as one finger riseth the
other may make the following letter, never
clogging the memory with several figures for
words : which with ease and void of confusion
are thus speedily and punctually, letter for
letter, set down by naked and not multiplied
points. And nothing can be less than a
point." One almost wonders that he did not
OR CIPHER-WRITING Sj
hit upon the idea of clipping his fingers in
the ink and so making four or five points at
once instead of being content with two. His
fifth invention is " a way by a Circular motion
either along a Rule or Eing wise, to vary
any Alphabet, so that the self-same Point
individually placed, without the least ad-
ditional mark or variation of place, shall stand
for all the 24 letters, and not for the same
letter twice in ten sheets writing : yet as
easily and certainly read and known as if it
stood but for one and the self same letter
constantly signified."
We were first made acquainted with the
labours of the Marquis by a reference to
them in an educational work, but pre-
ferring ahvays, where at all practicable,
to go to the original, we turned it up in
the magnificent Library — the students' Para-
dise— at the British Museum. We note
with great regret that the author gives
no further clue to his inventions than such
88 CRYPTOGRAPHY
sliort sketch as we have already quoted \
in the case of one or two of them. This
fifth invention of his, the constant shifting
Fig. 8.
of significance of letters rule or ring- wise, is
very descriptive, however, of two methods, or
rather perhaps one method in two forms, that
was largely in use in the middle ages. Fig.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 89
8 is an illustration. We draw a circle on a
fairly stout piece of cardboard and divide its
circumference into twenty-six equal parts, and
in these divisions we place the letters of the
alphabet in the regular ABC sequence of
ordinary usage. We then cut out a somewhat
smaller circle from one card and divide the
edge of this also into twenty-six equal parts,
and in these we place the alphabet letters in
any haphazard fashion we choose. We next
cut this out and place it in the centre of the
first and drive a good strong pin through
the centre, the result being that the upper
card revolves freely on the under one, enabling
us to bring any letter of the one in a line
with any letter of the other. The person
with whom we are corresponding has a similar
arrangement, an(J we arrange together that,
as in Fig. 8, J shall be adjusted to A.
We then spell the words out, the true
letters being those of the outer circle, but
representing them by those of the inner. If
90 CRYPTOGRAPHY
then we desire by means of this diagram to
write the word February, it would come out
as DZOXEJXT. The sender reads from the
outer circle to the inner one, while the re-
ceiver reads the characters from inner to
outer, a glance at the two circles showing
him that D is really F, that Z is E, and so
on. This may be used, as set, for a time ; but
if we want to circumvent the ingenious med-
dler who begins to think that he has got a
clue through our continuous use of the same
equivalents, all that is necessary is to give
the upper card a gentle push and A, B, C, etc.,
are now represented on the inner circle by en-
tirely different letters, and the too ingenious
onlooker is at once thrown off the scent. Our
correspondent must of course know of this
and give his card a similar turn, but this
may easily be arranged. It might, for in-
stance, be that two similar letters followed
by a different one should convey the hint;
thus, KKQ would mean that at this point we
OR CIPHER-WRITING
91
shift our inner alphabet till the letter within
A should be Q; and if we like
in the course of a page or two
to change again, then BBX
would convey the hint to spin
the circle round until X became
the new equivalent of A.
This combination of the fixed
and revolving circles is a most
excellent one, its only drawback
being that it is perhaps a little
difficult to read the radiating
letters, as while only one is ab-
solutely straight up the others
begin to lean away at gradually
increasing angles, till we get at
last to one that is absolutely
upside-down. After all, how-
ever, a little practice should
make the reading of them a
very easy matter; but to those
who feel a difficulty Fig. 9 fjg. 9.
L
Y
D
A.
L
A®
B@
c®
D©
E®
F®
C ®
H®
1 ©
K ®
92 CRYPTOGRAPHY
should come as a boon and a blessing
wliere the " Ring- wise " arrangement is
changed for that " along a Rule." We
must confess ourselves that the compact-
ness of No. 8 more than compensates to
our mind for any topsy-turvjdom, Fig. 9
being a long rambling sort of thing to keep
in one's desk, and possessing great possibilities
of being torn when turned oyer amongst other
papers. We have only drawn a portion, less
than half — the proportion in fact that AK,
the part we have shown, bears to AZ. To
make this key a somewhat broad strip of
card has twenty-six openings cut or punch-
ed in it, and opposite to these, in regular
sequence, are placed the letters of the al-
phabet. A slit is then cut at top and
bottom, and a narrower strip of card is
inserted so that it will slip, not too easily,
up and down. All along this, at the same
distances apart as the openings on the
broader strip, are placed the letters of
OR CIPHER-WRITING 93
the alphabet in any irregular order. When
the whole twenty-six letters have found a
resting place, the strip should still be so
long as to admit of the repetition of the first
six or eight, as what we want is not only a
letter to appear opposite the A, B, C, down to
the end, but also some little surplus, so that
the slip can be moved up and down so as
to bring other combinations in. Of course
the reader, on inspection of our figure, sees
that in principle it is identical with the circular
card method already shown, that "head"
would be XVET, and that we could at once
vary the equivalents by sliding the narrow
strip upwards or downwards. If we slipped
it down imtil D came opposite to A, then
''head'' would no longer be XYRT, but
BEDN. Our correspondent must clearly be
informed of any such shifting, and of course
any accidental shifting of the sliding piece
must be guarded against. The merest glance
that the proper key letter is still opposite to
94 CRYPTOGRAPHY
A will suffice to sliow wliether any movement
has taken place.
To revert now to our ingenious Marquis.
After devoting the first five of his "Century" to
cryptography, he remembers that after all there
are other matters that may be dealt with too ;
but cryptography crops up again at No. 33,
and this and Nos. 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41,
42, and 43 are all devoted to suggestions for
secret communication, though some of them
are of a very forced character and having no-
thing to do with writing at all. Fig. 40, for
instance, is to be worked by the sense of smell,
pegs of sandal- wood, cedar, rosewood, and so
forth being so arranged and grouped that
even in the dark a message could be composed
or discriminated ; while another method trusts
to the taste, pegs being dipped in alum, salt,
aloes, etc., and distinguished by touching them
with the tongue. It is scarcely to be imagined
that even amongst the blind such a sensitive-
ness to smell or taste could be developed as
OR CIPHER- WRITING 95
would make these fancies workable realities.
We sliould imagine that some sixty or eighty
applications of the tongue would end in a com-
[plete dulling of the perception, while one could
scarcely imagine anything much more nauseous
than a course of peg-tasting for half an hour of
alum, castor oil, saccharine, turpentine, cod-
liver oil, lavender water, salt, and as many
more strongly flavoured ingredients as would
ibuild up an alphabet. One of his methods
is by a knotted string, and another he calls
a bracelet alphabet. After No. 43 he devises
a new tinder box, an artificial bird, and so
on; but at No. 52 we find him harping on
the old string again, if devising an alphabet by
the ''jangling the Bells of any parish church "
can be so termed, and at No. 75 we are in-
structed " how a tape or ribbon weaver may set
down a whole discourse without knowing a
letter, or interweaving anything suspicious of
other secret than a new-fashioned ribbon."
It is certainly very remarkable that when
96 CRYPTOGRAPHY
the Marquis had the whole field of possible
inventions open to him, he should have devoted
so large a proportion of his book to the think-
ing out of so many schemes in this one narrow
field of investigation.
The bracelet alphabet idea has been utilised,
and cryptographic messages may readily be
conveyed by means of any coloured objects
such as beads or precious stones. If we take,
for example, some red, green, yellow, black,
blue, and white beads, we can so arrange them
in pairs, each pair representing one letter of
the alphabet, as to be able to spell out any
communication. Such a bracelet or string of
beads could be worn on the person, or sent
amongst other trinkets without exciting any
special observation. Receiver and sender
would mutually arrange a scheme of lettering
by this aid of colours, and if at any time this
were discovered a re-arrangement of the
colours would alone be necessary for a fresh
departure, and these variations could be made
OR CIPHER-WRIThXG 97
in an immense number of ways. By way of a
start we would suggest the following key: —
A = red and green N = white and red
B = yellow and green 0 = green and white
C = red and yellow , P = black and green
D=yellow and black Q = white and green
E = red and black R = white and black
F = black and yellow S = yellow and white
Gr — green and black T== white and yellow
H= yellow and red U V = green and green
1 J = green and yellow ^7= black and white
K= green and red X= red and red
L= black and red Y= yellow and yellow
M=red and white Z= black and black
Beads of turquoise blue colour can be used
to divide words, or tliey may be inserted
anywliere as non-significants. If tlie beads
themselves are not available, the initials
of the colours will suffice ; thus, if we can-
not actually express A by a red and a green
bead, we can by RG. As B is already re-
quired for black, the blue must be T for
turquoise. Ignoring T wherever it comes,
the letters mast always be read in pairs, as it
takes two of these to signify the real letters of
G
98 CRYPTOGRAPH y
the message, and, knowing tliis, any number of
accidental breaks, as misleaders, may be in-
troduced. "Mind see Cecil" would therefore
read EWGYWRYBYWRBTRBEYTRTBRY-
GYBRT or RWTGY WRYBT YWRB
TRBRBT RTBRYG YBRTT, or any other
arbitrary breaking-up of these particular let-
ters into sham words to mislead investigators
that we chose to make.
In Fig. 10 we have strung the actual beads,
marking their colours by the signs used in
heraldic work.^ Their message is the begin-
ning of "Mind see Cecil."
1 Should any of our readers not know these, they would
find it useful to learn them, as they come in very service-
ably not only in finding from these signs the actual
colours of arms engraved in illustrations, book plates, and
the like, but they are also very useful as a shorthand
•way of expressing colours for any purpose, as, for example,
OR CIPHER-WRITING 99
A curious form of early ciplier may be
seen iu Fig. 11. Eacli of tlie persons
desirous of communicating Tvitli eacli other
was provided with a similar strip of board
or stout card. Along the top of this was
placed the alphabet, either according to the
common order of the letters or in any irreg-
ular fashion, so long only as they all made
their appearance somewhere in the series. A
knot was then tied at the end of a piece of
string, and by it, through a hole made at the
top of the strip, the string was held in its
place. The sides of the strip of wood or card-
board were notched, and the string was wound
round tightly and was held in these teeth or
notches and secured at the bottom by being
inserted in a cut. On this string the person
our beads. Gold or yellow are indicated by dots, -while
silver or white are left qnite plain. Red is shown by a
series of upright lines and blue by horizontal ores, while
black is known by being marked in plaid by lines both
horizontally and vertically disposed. Green is indicated
by inclined lines downwards from right to left.
100
CRYPTOGRAPHY
sending the message made a mark witli ink or
colour in a line witli any desired letter. The
message being thus spelt out, the string was
unfastened and then wrapped round a package
or in some such inconspicuous way got into the
hands of the receiver. He, on its receipt,
wound it round his counterpart board and was
Fig. 11.
enabled, readily enough, to read off the com-
munication. Fig. 11 is only a small portion of
such a board, though sufficient to indicate its
use. We have commenced upon it the mes-
sage *^ First chance not till May," but our
space enables us to show but a very limited
portion of this. The first line gives us FIRST,
OR CIPHER-WRITING 10 1
but t)ie second line only gives CH, as the A we
want next comes before C and H in the alpha-
bet and must therefore come on tlie next row.
If we marked it on the same row, we should get
ACH, and this is no use to us. The onlj
drawback to this method of communication is
that, unless each party stretches the string
with equal tension all through, the marks will
not in the second winding come in quite the
right places. A slip along of only one letter
space would turn FIRST into GJSTU, to the
great bewilderment of the receiver of this
enigmatical message.
Lord Chancellor Bacon was an enthusiast
in cryptology. He laid down the law in
quite Johnsonian style in this and many other
matters. The three essentials of a good
cipher, he very justly declared, were facility in
execution, difficulty in solution, clearness from
suspicion. This latter item is perhaps not
very clearly put; his meaning is safety from
the decipherment of those for whom the com-
102 CRYPTOGRAPHY
munication was not intended. A method that
he himself devised, he with calm assurance
introduced as "a cypher of our own which
has the highest perfection of a cypher, that
of signifying omnia 'par omnia, anything by
everything." This sounds most convincing
and awe-inspiring. It is ordinarily said that
people will accept a man pretty much at the
valuation he sets on himself; but when one
presently re-reads this Baconian dictum, and
asks what it means, perhaps the truest answer
would be " very little."
As a cipher it is not of any great merit,
and it sins grievously against his own first
rule, since it is by no means facile in use. He
employs only the letters A and B, and arranges
these in groups of five for the different letters.
If then we desire to send a message of fifty
letters, it would be necessary to use two
hundred and fifty. It is therefore far too
slow in operation ; even if one had the various
formulae at one's finger's ends, it would involve
I
OR CIPHER-WRITING
103
five times the labour of ordinary writing.
When we once know that each group of five
stands for a single letter, it is as liable of
discovery, on the same principles of decipher-
ment, as a simpler arrangement. Of course, if
Bacon had not published this clue, the task
would have been immensely more difficult, and
it is only just to his method to frankly and
fully say so.
The cipher was composed as follows: —
A=AAAAA
B=AAAAB
C=AAABA
D=AAABB
E=AABAA
E =AABAB
G=:AABBA
H = AABEB
I -ABAAA
K=ABAAB
L = ABABA
M = ABABB
N=ABBAA
0=ABBAB
P^ABBBA
Q=ABBBB
R=BAAAA
S =BAAAB
T =BAABA
U -BAABB
W = BABAA
X=BABAB
Y =BABBA
Z =BABBB
We shall the better see the cumbrous nature
of this cipher if we endeavour to apply it.
Such a word, for instance, as cryptogram
would become by this code —
AAABABAAAABABBAABBBABAABAABBAB
AABBABAAAAAAAAAABABB
104
CRYPTOGRAPHY
In tlie same cumbrous fasliion, and based
on the same lines as that of Bacon, is the
following, which we extract from an old
encyclopedia: —
A = lllll
B = 11112
C =11121
D=11122
E =11211
F =11212
G= 11221
H = 11222
I =12111
J =12112
K = 12122
L =12211
M = 12212
N = 12221
0=12222
P =21111
Q =21112
11=21121
S =21122
T =21211
U =21212
V =21221
W = 12121
X =22212
Y =22221
Z =22122
The intervals between the words were to
be marked by 333. If we wished to ask
our correspondent to " come soon now," we
should have to set forth the following unwieldy
arrangement : —
1112112222122121121133321122122221222212221
333122211222212121
Another plan that has been sometimes
adopted may be illustrated by the following
cumbersome example from Trithemius, where
OR CIPHER-WRITING 105
only the second letter in each word counts, and
all the rest is mere padding : " Baldach abasar
lemai clamech abrach misach abrai disaria
athanas." This, after all, only signifies " Abel
bibit," and it has taken fifty-six letters to give
nine !
n//bqA)Cct)nt-OC
Y. O ± 4+f 8 4> /^ r+- A Hi
Fig! 12.
In some of the Elizabethan ciphers neither
letters nor figures are used; but in place of
them we find merely arbitrary forms, such as
those we have represented in Fig. 12. But
this, though it looks at first sight very mys-
terious, has no more real element of difficulty
in it than the use of the letters of the alphabet.
1 06 CR YPTOGRAPHY
It is really immaterial whether we spell cat
with a curved line (that we have learnt to call
0), and two sloping lines coming to a point
and a horizontal line across their centre (that
we have got used to as A), and a third symbol
made up of an upright line and then a hori-
zontal line across its top (a form that we are
accustomed to call T), or whether we decide
that C instead shall be made of two lines
crossing at their centres, while A shall be a
thing made up of two circles, like a figure 8
turned sideways. If we recognise that a cer-
tain form is the symbol of a certain letter, we
soon learn to recognise this form when we see
it, and its shape is a matter that is absolutely
indifferent to us. If the letters of our present
alphabet had not been the shapes we know
them, but something entirely different, it would
still have been our alphabet, and it is as easy
to write dog in Greek or German letters, or in
these grotesque forms of Fig. 12, as in the
letters in which this page before us is printed.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 1 07
AYhy should not the ten upper forms in Fig.
12 spell cryptogram just as well as CRYPTO-
^ GRAM does ? In the one case we are used to
the forms employed, and in the other case we
are not. That is really the only difference.
CHAPTER III
Is an undecipherable cryptogram possible P — The art of
deciphering — Keys for the analysis of a cryptogram — Oft
recurring letters — Great repetition of Towels — Patient
perseverance — Papers on the subject in Gentleman's
Magazine of 1742 — Yalue of general knoTvledge — Conrad's
rules — The letter E — " Noughts and crosses " cryptogram
— Its construction — Ciphers from agony columns of Stan-
dard and Times — Prying busybodies — Alternate letters
significant — Ciphers based on divers shiftings of the
letters — Cryptogram in Cocker's *' Arithmetick " — In-
ventor in 1761 of supposed absolutely secret system — His
hopes and fears thereon— Illegal to publish Parliamentary
debates — Evasion of the law— Poe's use of cryptogram
in story— Secret marks made by tramps and vagrants —
Shop ciphers for marking prices on goods — Crypto-
grammic trade advertisements — Examples of cipher
construction— The "grill" cipher—The "revolving grill"
— The " slip-card " — Forms of numerical cipher — The
"Mirabeau" — Count Grousfield's cipher — Communi-
cation by use of a dictionary — The "Newark" — Tiio
" Clock-hands " — The " two-word" cipher — Conclusion.
rpiHE question as to whether a cipher has
ever been devised that could for all time
successfully defy patient investigation will
naturally occur to our readers. Some would
have it that as all the advantages are in favour
108
CIPHER- WRITING 1 09
of the ingenious cryptographist, it should not
be impossible to build up a monument of
ingenuity that should be safe from all assault,
and certainly this is an opinion that commends
itself to us as a very reasonable one. Others
would tell us that nothing that the wit of man
could devise is safe from the wit of some other
man to search out. However this may be, —
and the point, of course, can never be settled,
— we must bear in mind that what to the
ordinary man is hopeless may not prove so to
the deftly-trained ingenuity of the expert. A
cryptogram in Paris that was deciphered some
few years ago for the French Government took
accompHshed experts just six months to lay
bare, and the ordinary amateur would scarcely
attack any problem with such dogged deter-
mination as that.
In the art of deciphering it is emphatically
the case that " practice makes perfect." There
are certain very definite rules, too, that prove
of immense assistance in the analysis of a
no CRYPTOGRAPHY
cryptogram. There are special conditions,
however, for each language, " 0," for example,
being a much more freely used letter in
Spanish or Italian than in English. In the
English language " E " is the letter that occurs
with the greatest frequency. The easiest
cipher to translate is that where each letter
in it always stands for some other individual
letter, where K, for instance, always means F,
or P may be recognised as L all through.
Where too the symbols, puzzlitig though they
be, are always arranged as in an ordinary com-
munication, and broken up into words. A
cipher at once becomes immensely more diffi-
cult if the letters change their significance, so
that, as in the revolving card we have already
illustrated, E, for instance, may be sometimes
written as J, at others as S, or M, or X. We
at once add greatly, too, to the puzzle if the
words .are all joined into one, or are arbitra-
rily broken up. Non- significants also add to
the difficulties of analysis, and it is a good plan
OR CIPHER-WRITING III
to cut out every " and " and " the " and such-
like common words that can at all be spared.
The English tongue abounds in monosyllables.
Of course the letters that necessarily qccur
most commonly are the vowels, and in words
of two letters, such as am, in, of, or we, one of
them is necessarily a vowel. E is not only the
commonest letter in use in English, but it also
very frequently occurs in couples ; been, seen,
feet, sweet, agreed, speed, are examples. EA
and OU are the double vowels that most com-
monly go together, as in pear, early, and ease,
or our, cloud, or rough. A single letter will
be A, or I, or 0. Of all English words " the "
is the one that most commonly occurs, and
"and" runs it very closely. If, therefore, we
have determined that the commonest symbol of
all in our mysterious cryptogram is E, then
if a very constantly recurring word of three
letters ends with this same symbol, we may
begin to hope that we have found out H and
T. EE, 00, LL, SS, are the doubled letters
112 CRYPTOGRAPHY
of most usual occurrence ; see, feet, tool,
sliall, well, miss, and loss are illustrations.
A begins three very common two -letters, an,
as, and at, and 0 begins of, on, or, and
ends do, go, no, so, to. In by far the great
majority of words the first or second letter
is a vowel. Q always has TJ after it. JS^o
English word terminates with I. It is on
such bases as these, vague as some of them
may seem, that the decipherer works. There
is no royal road; nothing but delicate dis-
crimination and unlimited patience will a-
chieve success.
When certain equivalents are determined,
they should at once be written down. We
may now take any word in which any one
or more of them occur, and substitute them
for the symbols standing for them, and then
just put dots for the others until more light
dawns. Very often this proceeding at once
suggests the whole word, and if so we have
at once gained a knowledge of other charac-
\
OR CIPHER-WRITING II3
ters and soon get a long way towards build-
ing up our key. If, for instance, we liave
discovered by analysis tliat X, L, and P are
really A, I, and T, and \Ye come across the
words FXLTNXO JPXPLER, we set them
down as follows : • AI • • A • • TATI • •, and it
presently begins to dawn upon us that the
words "railway station'* would just fit in.
We at all events accept this tentatively.
If we are right we have added largely to
our store, for we now see that F must
really be R, T must be L, N must be W,
0 will be Y, J is S, E must be 0, while
R represents N. Our knowledge of three let*
ters has thus given us seven others. If we
presently find in the cryptogram the group
of letters JQXTT, we remember that we
know X to be really A, and our railway
station guess has led us to believe that
J is really S, and T is L; we try how it
looks if we turn JQXTT into S • ALL. This
suggests to us small, stall, and shall, so Q is
II
114 CRYPTOGRAPHY
eitlier M or H ; we know that tlie word is
not stall, because T we already know is
shown by P. One or two endeavours at words
containing Q will determine for us whether we
shall read it as M or H. Z, the commonest
symbol of all, we have decided at once to be
E, and PQZ offcen recurs. T'E is evidently
THE, so Q is not M, — for there is no word
TME — but H. JQXTT is therefore SHALL.
So by patient analysis, sometimes by success,
sometimes by failure, sometimes by guessing
what it might be, sometimes by seeing what
it could not be, we step by step press on.
The man who would pull down a wall finds
it difficult to make a start, but when he has
once got his pick fairly into a joint the first
brick is presently got out, and then all the
others follow, every brick removed making
the work easier. The first insertion of the
quarryman's wedge wants considerable skill;
blow after blow of the swinging hammers
fall swiftly then upon it, and each tells,
OH CIPHER-WRITING 1 15
until presently tlie great block of many tons
in weight is riven in twain.
In the Gentleman^ s Magazine for the year
1742 will be found an interesting series of
papers on the art of deciphering, entitled
" Gryptographia denudata,*^ the author being
David Arnold Conradus. After a general
introduction he first proceeds, curiously
enough, in an English magazine, to an
exposition of the German language, point-
ing out the characteristic recurrences of
letters, terminations of words, and so forth,
by which one may attack a cryptogram
in that language. He then proceeds with
equal thoroughness to analyse the Dutch
language, then the Latin, English, French,
Italian, and Greek. He writes : " The Art of
Deciphering being an abstruse Subject I pur-
pose in this Attempt to explain it with
Accuracy and Perspicuity, and I doubt not
by this Undertaking both of gratifying the
Curiosity of the Inquisitive, and of convinc-
Il6 CRYPTOGRAPHY
ing tliose of tlie Certainty of the Art who
have hitherto questioned it. There are to be
found Men of uncommon Capacity who are
ready to assert with great Confidence that
no Success is to be expected from Enquiries
so doubtful and uncertain in their Nature.
There are these whose Credulity and Super-
stition set them almost below Mention, who
pronounce no less positively that the Inter-
pretation of private Characters, if it ever can
be attained, is the effect of Magic. The Art
of Deciphering is the Practice of interpreting
Writings composed of Secret Characters, so
that the true sense and words of the Writer
shall be exactly known. This Art, however
difficult it may appear, will be admired for
its Simplicity and the Ease with which it may
be attained, when the Theory of it is under-
stood, which depends upon many certain and
a few probable Propositions. The Usefulness
of Arts by w^hich suspected and dangerous
Correspondences may be detected cannot be
OR CIPHER-WRITING II7
denied, nor is it a small Incitement to tlie
Study of it that those who profess it are em-
ployed by Princes, in time of War particularly,
and rewarded with the utmost Liberality.
** He that engages in this Study is supposed
to be previously furnished with various kinds
of Knowledge. He must be in the first Place
Master of Orthography, that we may know
what Letters are required for each Word. He
should be acquainted with several Languages,
and particularly Latin, which is most fre-
quently made use of in secret Writings; and
he will be a greater Master of this Art in pro-
portion as his Knowledge of Languages is
more extensive; for the Decipherer has to
determine what the Language is, in which the
secret Writing is composed, whether Latin,
French, or any other ; and by this Art are to
be discovered the peculiar Characteristics of
each Language.
"It is likewise necessary to understand at
least the Elements of various Sciences, that
Il8 CRYPTOGRAPHY
the Sense of any Passage may be more easily
discovered, and one word contribute to tlie
Explication of anotliei*. Cryptograpliy, or
the Art of writing in Ciphers, must likewise
be understood, by which so many Artifices
are jDracticed, so many intricate Alphabets
formed, and so many Expedients for Secrecy
produced as requires the utmost Acuteness
to detect and explain. Upon the whole as
a Man advances in Learning he becomes
better qualified for a Decipherer.
"By Accuracy of Method and a just De-
duction of Particulars from Generals, is our
Art exalted into a Science, consisting of cer-
tain and indubitable Propositions, from whence
the Rules are drawn, which are to be used
as Clues in the Labyrinth of Cryptography."
Truly our author magnifies his subject!
He who would shine in it would be a man
who might have been Solicitor-General or
Primate of all England had he not chosen
the path of the cryptographic expert I
OR CIPHER-WRITING II9
His rules spring rather quaintly from his
propositions. Thus the proposition says "In
a Writing of any Length the same Letters
recur several times." Then the rule says
"Writings of Length are most easy to de-
cipher, because there are more Opportunities
of remarking the Combination, Frequency,
etc., of the Letters." One would have
thought the proposition suflSciently clear to a
man of ordinary intelligence, without need of
what is practically a repetition of it : merely
old matter under a new name. Another
proposition says that " The Vowels are
four times outnumbered by the Consonants,
the Vowels must therefore recur most fre-
quently." The rule that is based on this is
as follows : " The Letters that recur most fre-
quently are Vowels."
Some of his suggestions are very good,
while others do not seem so very helpful after
all. Thus we are gravely told, if the writ-
ing be in Dutch any three-letter word must
1 20 CR YPTOGRAPHY
either be aal or aap, aan, aen, als, amt, arm,
arg, ast, bad, baf, bak, bal, ban, bas, bed,
bef, bek, bel, ben, bes, bid, bik, bil, bit, bly,
bok, bol, bon, bos, bot, bry, bul, bus, dag,
dam, dan, das, dat, dek, den, der, des, die,
dik, dis, dit, doe, dog, dol, dop, dor, dun,
dur, djk, een, eer, eet, elf, elk, end, erf,
eva, fjn, gal, gat, gek, git, plus one hundred
and eiglity-two more right away through
the alphabet till we pull up finally at zyn.
Whether this list of all three-letter words
be at all exhaustive, our ignorance of Dutch
forbids us to say; but in the English section
he roundly declares that any three-letter
word in that language must, at all events,
be one out of the list of one hundred and
eight that he gives. On looking over this
list, however, one quickly notes many omis-
sions. The words, for instance, beginning
with M that he gives are mad, man, may,
and men ; but to these we may at once add
mar, mat, map, maw, met, mew, mid, mob.
OR CIPHER-WRITING 121
mop, mow, mud, and mug. As we have
thus readily amplified his four words under
only one initial letter into sixteen, it will
readily be seen that the same treatment all
through the alphabet would prodigiously in-
crease his grand total of one himdred and
eight. His formula to be of practical use
should therefore be extended into — "Any
word of three letters will be found to be
one of the following one hundred and eight,
unless, perchance, it may be one out of the
many scores of other three-letter words that
we have omitted to include in our list." Be-
sides, in any case, the list is utterly useless.
If it were possible to say that any three-
letter word must necessarily decipher into
" and," or " the," or " but," the hint would be
a most valuable one ; but when one can go no
further than to say that it is either one of
those three, or, more probably, one out of
a list of four or five hundred other words,
the help given is, after all, not of great
122 CRYPTOGRAPHY
value. Setting up as some little autliority
on tlie matter ourselves, we may add to
these rules of Conrad's one wliicli lie seems
to have overlooked : that all words be-
ginning with H will be found to be either
horse or hallelujah, or else one of the hun-
dreds of other words that commence with
that letter.
The letter E is the commonest in use of all
the letters, not only in English but in all of
the European languages. Statistical enthusi-
asts assert that out of every thousand letters
in any ordinary page of prose, one hundred
and thirty-seven of them will in English be
this letter. This is a matter that our
readers, who are statistic and enthusiastic,
can at once check from the page before
them, if, indeed, we may assume it to fulfil
the conditions named, and not sink beneath
even ordinary prose. In a French book the
letter E should occur about one hundred
and eighty-four times per thousand, a
OR CIPHER- WRITING 123
mucli larger proportion than in English;
wliile the German language runs the French
very close, being one hundred and seventy-
eight per thousand. Spanish and Italian
are about^ the. same in this respect as Eng-
lish; one hundred and thirty-one per thou-
sand being assigned to Itahan, while in
Spanish the letter E occurs one hundred
and forty-five times. Of course, all these
numbei*s are necessarily only approximate.
The only letters of which more than ten per
cent, occur are the I, iS", and 0 ; the former
coming out in Italian at about one hundred
and three per thousand, the N at about one
hundred and ten in German, and the 0 at
about one hundred and seven in each thou-
sand letters used in Italian and Spanish
writing and printing.
An old fellow we once met, and who
^prided himself on being rather clever at this
art or science of decipherment, told us that
he had, for the fun of the thing, joined in
124 CRYPTOGRAPHY
some of tlie " agony-column " advertisements
in tlie newspapers, to the great perplexity
of tlie original correspondents, and he
CL
f\x
NQ
SW
HM
TZ
CE
PU
AJ
+ XIE
<LFruu->v->Li+ri:Fi:E
D->]-|-n<->LCEX<nUElX
(uriAnrc+A<]iLEx+F
Fig. 13.
further ventured the rather rash remark
to us that he could unravel any cryp-
togram. On this we sent him a message
that had not a single E in it, as we
knew that this letter was the first he would
OR CIPHER-WRITING
125
endeavour to get hold of; and the final out-
come might be considered a confession that
he was beaten — at least, he never replied to
our communication. The form of crjptogi'am
we employed is rather a good one, and we
have often used it on postcards, etc. Pro-
bably most of our readers in their school-
days have playc^d " noughts and crosses "
when they ought to have been devoting their
time instead to one of the subjects set down
in the curriculum. Set out, then, two hori-
zontal and two vertical lines, as shown in
the upper part of Fig. 13, and place in the
spaces made by them the various letters of
the alphabet in pairs, so far as they will
go. As a matter of fact, it will use up
eighteen of them. Then place two other
lines X-wise, as we may see, to the right
of the previous arrangement, and in the
four intervening spaces that these make
place, also in pairs, the remaining eight
letters. These letters may be arranged in
126
CRYPTOGRAPHY
any order. Should it at any time appear
that some unauthorized person has pene-
trated the mystery, it would merely be
necessary to shift the letters and start
happily again. This shifting would be ar-
PW
EC
KY
UH
LS
^R
ZD
QT
IM
JECtXCVVUJREnEE
v<">idECR]acnr<">Q+
Fig. 14.
ranged as follows : — On counting the pairs
of letters, we find, of course, that there are
thirteen. Two in the first space, two in the
second, and so on. Our present arrange-
ment is 1CL2RX3NQ, and so forth. It
OR CIPHER-WRITING 1 27
is evident that if we merely sent our corre-
spondent the new formula, 'as IP W2 E&
3KY, any unauthorized person into whose
hands it fell might reconstruct it. To avoid
this, we should not place our figures in the
ordinary numerical order, and we should use
others beyond the thirteen. These would be
non-significants, and any letters that fol-
lowed them we should, on receipt, merely
run our pens through. We have in the
upper part of Fig. 14 given the new com-
bination, and the formula for it might run as
follows: 12FO370J5LS91OEA91M4UH, and
so forth. We should, on getting this, draw
out the skeleton lines and lightly number
the spaces, and then proceed to construct
our key, putting FO in the twelfth space, LS
in the fifth, taking no notice of the CJ, as
we have no thirty-seventh space to put it in.
To use this cryptogram, we must note the
shapes the lines make. The central space in
the upper left-hand diagram in Fig. 13 is
128 CRYPTOGRAPHY
clearly a square; tlie space above would be
a square, except that it has no top line ;
the space to right of it is also a three-
line figure, the square being incomplete for
want of the right-hand line ; and the same
applies to the space below, to the left
and so on all round. The X-like figure
gives us a Y-like form at top, a reversed V
at base, and two other Y's that are turned
sideways. For the first letter in each space
we merely draw that space; thus H is a
square, and the second letter we represent
by a dot in the space. Below the X-like
cross we have placed four forms that are
merely dummies for use where we please;
and such little -used forms as those for J, X,
or Z may be also thus employed, as any one
receiving and reading off the message would
readily detect their non-essential character.
In the lower half of Fig. 13 is the mes-
sage we send by it — " On arriving at this
point our Frank sat down." Below the
OK, CIPHER-WRITING 1 29
second combination, Fig. 14, we j)lace an-
other communication; but this our readers,
with the key before them, should find no
ditficultv in deciphering for themselves, so
we leave it to them.
The following is from an advertisement in
one of the London daily papers, the Standard
of April 14th, 1892 :—
SN NADX.— H vhkk miis rzx vgzs li
gzud sgntfgs, — Nq vgzs rvdds sghmfr
Izx qhrd tmrntfgs. — He h bntkc nmkx ad
pthsd rtqd, — H sghmj h'c cqno tonm sgd
ektqd !— AKZQMDX.
It is of very easy construction, each letter
being merely one forward in reality from the
one here given, so that what is B is really
A, what is Y is really W, and so on. It
is the poetic effusion of one " Blarney "
(AKZQMDX). It read as follows :—
" I will not say what I have thought,
Or what sweet things may rise unsought.
If I could only be quite sure,
I think I'd drop upon the flare."
In the following from the Times, two letters
I
130 CRYPTOGRAPHY
ahead of the real one are used : — *' Ngv og
mpqy aqw ctg uchg cpf gcug oa vqtvwtgf
okpf," meaning, " Let me know you are safe,
and ease my tortured mind."
In another limes notice F was substituted
for A, Gr for B, etc. The story involved must
have been a very sad one, and much sickness
of heart was evident in its appeal. Three
days later appeared in the same cipher the
intimation, " I know you," evidently the work
of some third person, and the correspondence
at once came to an end. That this penetra-
tion into matters deemed secret must often
take place is evident from intimations that
one not unfrequently sees that a certain ad-
vertisement referred to was not inserted by
the person whose name or other sign it bore.
We may perhaps be allowed to say here
that the illustrations of decipherment we
have here given are published examples,^ that
1 From an American book of the " Curiosities of
Literature " type.
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 131
in tlie case of the third we have foreborne to
give the details, and that our strong feehng
is that while those who make use of crypto-
graphy do it at their own risk, and in some
measure may be thought to be issuing a chal-
lenge to bnsybodies,^ that nevertheless to pry
into matters that do not concern one is a
base and ungenerous thing to do ; that to
decipher a communication not intended for
ourselves is on a par with reading a letter
that may be lying about, listening to a con-
versation not intended for us, or any other
such meanness.
Some advertisements are so abbreviated, as
so much business or sentiment has to be got
into so narrow a space, that they verge on
the cryptographic without any such intention
— as, for instance, " so hpy in nw lime, so
thnkf an mre hpfl fr yr ftre."
^ A term a little wanting in accuracy, as used gene-
rally to define those who have no proper work to busy
themselves with, or who, having it, neglect it to attend
to that of others.
132 CR YPTOGRAPHY
Several forms of cryptographic writing may
readily be devised, not by changing the various
letters into others, but retaining them as
they are, a being a, b remaining b, and simply
mixing them up with other letters that are
merely blinds. Thus we may determine that
alternate letters, say the second, fourth, sixtb,
and so on, shall be the significants, the carriers
of the message. For instance, if we desire
to send the following communication, " Get
away at once," it would read as " Lgpestra
rwnapyi astro eniciel." We could break it
up into any arbitrary groups of letters or
run it all into one ; thus it might read,
Egoentlavwxalyvaft Polnjcien. In either case
all we should need to do to decipher it would
be to run our pen through all the odd num-
bers and then read off what was left, or
put, as done here, a dot under each letter
that is to count. It just doubles the length
of the communication, a message of thirty
letters requiring another thirty to conceal it.
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 33
111 substitution for this we may make the
first letter of the first word, the second of
the second, and the third of the third, the
significant letters, beginning again at the first
of the next, then the second of the following
one, and so on. " Get away at once " would
then read, "go pey rst al Iwn afa yon ta sft
of pn loc ei." By this means we have to
employ a considerable number of non-signifi-
cants. This is certainly a drawback, and it
would in an especial degree be felt to be so
the message to be conveyed were at all
lengthy one. Such devices, however, have
[' the advantage that the letters employed to
;pell out the communication are the real letters,
'here is no need to learn a code of substi-
tuted characters, and one is also spared the
shance of error that may spring from the use
such a code.
In the far-famed Cocker's ^ " Decimal, Loofa-
^ " According to Cocker," i.e., au accuracy of statement
mtirelj beyond question. The phrase occurs in a farce
called The Apprentice, and hit the popular fancy.
134 CRYPTOGRAPHY
rithmical, and Algebraical Arithmetick," pub-
lislied in tlie year 1684, we find, following
the preface, a letter in cipher. All the vowels
in this remain unchanged; A is A, and E
is E, neither more nor less; and if we replace
B.O.D.F.G.H.K.L.M.N.P.R.S.T.W.X.Z. by
Z.X.W.T.S.R.P.N.M.L.K.H.G.F.D.C.B.— a
mere reversal of the ordinary arrangement
of the consonants, — we shall find no difficulty
in reading the letter. By this code Constan-
tinople would be XOLGFALFILOKNE.
In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1761 we
find a rather interesting letter from a man who
flatters himself that he has devised an abso-
lutely safe cryptogram. He declares that
" when the present war was ready to break
out, a gentleman, not versed in secret
alphabets, but chancing to think upon the
subject, happened to hit upon a kind of
cipher, the properties of which appeared
very extraordinary, not only to him but
also to some of his friends not apt to make
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 35
rasli conclusions. He therefore without de-
lay endeavoured to convey notice of liis in-
vention to his late Majesty : judging it might
prove advantageous to the Royal Measures
during a great and critical war to be waged
at once in so many and so removed parts of
the world. But this attempt, and likewise a
second, had no effect.
" In the meantime some of his friends, solici-
tous to know the real merits of this cipher,
procured that different specimens of it should,
together with a brief detail of its properties,
be laid before his Majesty's chief decipherer
(esteemed the best in the world), requesting
that he would be pleased to let them know
whether he could or could not read those
specimens, and begging his opinion upon the
whole affair. The candid artist, having taken
due time to peruse those writings, made
answer that he could not read them, and
that if they actually possessed the properties
ascribed to them there could be no doubt
136 CRYPTOGRAPHY
about the importance of sucli an art. But
it was not his business to meddle further in
it.
"It occurred to tlie author, when he had
failed of making this art ad\^antageous to the
British dominions, that he could easily sell
it upon the Continent; and, probably, for a
sum not inferior to a large Parliamentary re-
ward, to which many thought it entitled. But
upon consulting his principles he found that
no crowned head of Europe was rich enough
to purchase from him an advantage over the
monarch of his own country.
" Thus disappointed both at home and abroad,
and reflecting that this secret may happen,
by lying by, to be buried with him, he set
himself to consider what to do with it, and
hath now at length he thinks hit upon the
best means of making it useful, and this
method is, to pubhsh it to all the world.''
A century later, we may parenthetically
presume that had the matter got so far as
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 37
this, he would have pocketed a handsome sum
in promotion money, and been entitled to a
seat on the directorate, while the rest of us
would have been inundated with prospectuses
of the Universal Cryptogram Company,
Limited.
He goes on to say that " at first he
saw several objections to this step, but they
disappeared as soon as the following rea-
sons presented themselves, viz. : First, that
the Supreme Wisdom hath locked up every
man's secrets, good and bad, in his own
breast. Secondly, that human wisdom hath
imitated the Supreme, by inflicting punish-
ment on those who unlawfully break open
secrets or letters. Thirdly, that after the pub-
lication of this art Governments will still have
it as much in their power as ever to suppress
all suspected writings, while every man's busi-
ness and private concerns shall be no further
exposed in what he writes than he chuses.
And this, the inventor imagines, will prove
13^ CRYPTOGRAPHY
of singular convenience and advantage to
mankind, who daily suffer from the insidious
practice of intercepting and counteracting not
only private instructions upon lawful busi-
ness, but even the most important dispatches
of nations.^
" These are the principal reasons that deter-
mined the author to publish this art ; but,
still diffident of his own judgment, he hath
made the two following observations, viz. :
First, that in case a true representation of
this cipher should speedily be laid before the
king; and that his Majesty should thereupon
be pleased to command the author to appear
and demonstrate the properties he attributes
to it, then will the author cheerfully obey, and
rejoice in the honour of arming his Majesty's
hand with so advantageous a weapon. And
he would much rather chuse thus to devote
this art to the particular service of his country
^ Surely in the breast of a patriot these two should
be transposed, and the national interest placed first.
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 39
than to that of his fellow-creatures in general ;
For, he is not (as some style themselves) a
citizen of the world, nor ever will be, till
the world becomes one city. Again, he will
never publish this secret till he hath given
six months' notice previously of his intention
to do so. And, if during those six months
gentlemen of sense and knowledge will be so
good as to publish reasons proving that more
evil than good will result from the publica-
tion of this secret, then will the author resolve
that it shall be buried with him. For he
detests the thought of extending the catalogue
of human ills. But, if no sufficient reasons
to the contrary shall appear, he will then
think it his duty to publish it without further
delay. Query then, whether more evil or
more good will result from such a publica-
tion ?
" The properties of the said Cipher. Firstly,
it can be wrote offhand in the common
characters. Secondly, it can be read at sight.
140 CRYPTOGRAPHY
Thirdly, the secrets both of writing and read-
ing it are so simple that they can, in five
minutes' time, be so perfectly communicated
that the person instructed shall be able, with-
out further help or any previous practice,
to write offhand and read at sight as above
set forth. Fourthly, though all the men in
the world were perfect masters of the art of
reading and writing this cipher, yet could any
two of them, by agreement upon a small
variation (to be made at will), correspond with
impenetrable secrecy, though their letters were
to pass open through the hands of all the
rest. Fifthly, it is strictly impossible for all
the art of man to read it except the reader
be in confidence with the writer. N.B. — That
the author thinks it may be demonstrated that
there never hath been invented, and that it
is impossible to invent, another cipher that
shall not be inferior to this by many de-
grees.
" An invaluable advantage of this cipher, in
OR, CIPHER-WRITING I41
tlie hands of a prince, is that he can with
ease and expedition write his own letters in
it, with no necessity of exposing their con-
tents to ciphering and deciphering clerks, first
at home, and next abroad ; or to any person
whatever, except the individual to whom he
writes. Another advantage is, that a prince,
master of it, can himself change his cipher
every day at will, and make, at the same time,
every variation a new cipher, absolutely im-
penetrable even to those who are masters of
this art, and to all human sagacity.
" This art, if judged useful to the crown of
these realms, should be first communicated
to the king only : that he may be the sole
possessor of it, and so have it in his power
to disperse it to such of his ministers abroad
only as his Majesty shall have occasion to
intrust with his most important communica-
tions. And the use of it ought to be reserved
for such occasions, that it may be communi-
cated to as few as possible, and so be kept
142 CRYPTOGRAPHY
for an arcanum imperii. It should be made
death and total confiscation for any man to
betray this secret communicated to them by
the king; and to the author also, should he
betray it after he hath given it up to his
Majesty.
" The toil and delays attending the best
ciphers hitherto invented are an intolerable
clog upon the dispatches of Courts. And we
see, by most of the letters taken this war,
that it hath been resolved rather to pen them
in plain writing than to subject them to such
ruinous delays. This cipher is exempt from
all such toil and delay. The best ciphers
hitherto invented and found fit for business
are held, by the best authorities upon the
subject, legible by an able artist. And this
must be true : For, otherwise, princes would
not, at a great expense, keep able decipherers.
This cipher is, in every variation of it, im-
pervious to all human penetration. The author
hath never yet communicated the art of this
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 43
cipher to any mortal; nor indeed ever will,
except to the king only, or to mankind in
general ; unless a dangerous sickness should
happen to oblige him to reveal them to a select
friend, in order to prevent them being lost
for ever."
Whether this were so all potent an instru-
ment as the inventor thought must for ever
remain a moot point, as the king evidently did
not respond to the advances made. Parliament
did not give the large reward hinted at, nor
was the Limited Company ever started where-
by the secret should be kept inviolate, as
he himself suggested, by the whole world
being told it. Perhaps the dangerous sick-
ness was too rapid in its progress to allow
the summons to the select friend, or in view of
the realities of Eternity all mundane objects,
even the great cipher itself, may have shrunk
into insignificance, or a sudden accident may
have befallen him and at once made all
notification of his secret a thing impossible.
144 CRYPTOGRAPHY
However this may have been, we have the
sufficient fact that all clue to the wondrous
cryptogram is for ever lost.
It was long illegal to publish the debates of
Parliament. In the various series of the
Gentleman's Magazine we find " Proceedings
in the Senate of great Lilliput" running at
considerable length all through the volumes.
The names of the speakers are veiled, but at
the end of the volume we have an " Analysis
of the Names of the Hurgoes, Climabs, etc., of
Lilliput," in which both the assumed and real
names are given. Hurgo is a Lord, and
Climab is a member of the House of Commons ;
a debate therefore in which Hurgoes Castroflet,
Shomlug, Toblat, Adonbring, and Guadrert
spoke was really carried on by Lords
Chesterfield, Cholmondeley, Talbot, Abingdon,
and Cartaret. One can only wonder that
such a very palpable evasion of the law should
have been thus winked at.
Eeaders of the weird tales of Edgar Allen
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 145
Poe will recall the great use of cryjDtograplij
in the story of " The Gold Bug," where a Mr.
liegrancl of South Carolina becomes possessed
of an enormous treasure ^ of gold coins of
antique date, and great variety, one himdred
and ten exceedingly fine diamonds, eighteen
rubies of remarkable brilliancy, three hundred
and ten emeralds, besides sapphires, opals un-
countable, and all by means of an old parch-
ment with some mysterious writing thereon.
Should any of our readers up to this point have
applied the cm bono argument to our book,
this good fortune of Mr. Legrand should be a
convincing proof of the value of a knowledge
of cryptography !
The treasure in question was supposed
to be a part of the plunderings of the notor-
ious pirate Kidd. Half buried in the sea
sand, in close proximity to a wreck, a piece
^ " We estimated the entire contents of the chest at a
million and a half of dollars, and upon the subsequent dis-
posal of the trinkets and jewels it was found that we had
greatly undervalued the treasure."
K
146 CRYPTOGRAPHY
of parchment was found, and on this some few
mysterious markings were noted. On the
application of heat this parchment revealed
some three or four lines of cryptogram, and
the hero of the story sets himself to the task
of its decipherment. It proves to be the clue
to the burial place of a treasure. The direc-
tions, duly followed, bring Legrand and two
helpers to a particular tree in the tropic forest,
and then at a certain distance and direction
from this conspicuous tree a vigorous digging
presently brings to light the massive chest
which holds this ill-gotten wealth. The
piratical vessel was lost and the scoundrels that
manned it drowned, and the memorandum found
by a mere chance on the desolate shore of
Sullivan's Island was the means of bringing to
knowledge the hidden booty. The story itself,
with its weird accompaniments of skeletons,
its midnight delvings, and so forth, can be read
at length by those who care to hunt it up in
any collection of Poe's works ; all that now
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 47
concerns us is the cryptograph round Avhich
the story turns. This also we need not set
out in detail, as it is given in full length in the
story. The weak point in it is that it is not
at all the sort of cipher that a pirate captain
would concoct, while it is exactly what a
literary man, with an eye to the possibilities
of the printing press, would put together*
Thus we find the dagger (t) representing D,
the asterisk (*) standing for N, the double
dagger {%) being 0. The parenthesis mark, (,
is E, and the semicolon (;) is representative of
T. The interrogation mark (?), the Tf, and the
colon also appear. The message commences
in this fashion —
53Ut305))6*;4826)4t
The decipherment of this abstruse memor-
andum is very well worked out in the story.
That some people still believe in a present
and future for cryptography is seen in the fact
that so lately as the year 1860 was patented a
machine for carrying on secret correspondence.
148 CRYPTOGRAPHY
Probably all our readers must have noticed
on tlieir gate-posts or door-steps certain
mysterious clialk-marks, tbe cryptographic
symbols of the great begging fraternity, telling
their successors what fate their appeal for
alms may be likely to meet with. The soft-
hearted, and perhaps a little soft-headed,
householder who dispenses liberally and with-
out enquiry to the bearers of every harrowing
tale need never fear any falling off in the
stream of applicants, since the little white
mark on his premises will always suflfice to
bring on a fresh inundation, while the man
who finds (or puts) a square mark on his door
will be free, for it is an intimation that he is
regarded as an unfavourable subject. A circle
with a dot in the centre guarantees complete
immunity from these uninvited visitors, the
immunity that naturally attaches to a man
who is prepared to hand any sturdy vagrant
over to the police and follow this \\\) with a
prosecution*
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 49
Business people often employ a kind of
cipher for marking prices on their goods and
samples when for some occult and mysterious
reason it is desirable that the customer should
be kept in the dark on the matter. We should
have thought that when a man was prepared
to sell a proper article at a fair price and pro-
fit,— five shillings, for instance, — he would not
feel any difficulty whatever in legibly marking
it with a good wholesome five that need not
be ashamed to look the whole world in the
face. If for some reason more or less legiti-
mate, he is unable to do this, all that is need-
ful for him is to hunt up some ten-letter word
or combination, such as smoking-cap, in which
all the letters are different, and then the
letters seriatim will stand for the numerals
12 3 456789 0. With this key before us
we see that an article marked MG/'i^ will cost
us 27/6.
We occasionally find the pushing business
man breaking out as a follower of the crypto-
150 CRYPTOGRAPHY
graphic art with the idea of more effectually
calling attention to his goods. An energetic
dealer in potatoes largely circulated the follow-
ing offer of a bag of the very best tubers to
all who could successfully read its terms. As
he was prepared to sell the potatoes at the
same price to all comers, whether they read
his cryptogram or not, the generosity of the
offer is not quite so clear as any one labouring
through his circular might have anticipated.
The result would probably amuse some and
irritate others ; but any way it would call at-
tention to the goods, and the dealer evidently
concluded that the balance of feeling would be
in his favour : —
^^ Eht otatop nam skniht retfa gnidaer siht,
uoy 11 iw leef taht sih Hams elzzup dna ytis-
oreneg si levon fi ton gnitseretni. Ti sekat
emit dna ecneitap ot daer, yltneuqesnoc eht
stcaf dluohs eb erom ylmrif detoor no ruoy
yromem; siht si eht tcejbo ni gnitirw eseht
wef senil, Ew hsiw uoy ot evah a gab fo ruo
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 151
seotatop, OS taht uoy yam wonk elit eurt eulav
fo melit, dna retfa ecno gnijrt meht, i leef erus
uoy lliw taeper ruoy redro morf emit ot emit.
Sa i wonk eht seotatop era doog i evali on
noitatiseh ni gnittup erofeb iioy ym suoreneg
reffo : yldnik drawrof xis sgnillihs dna ecnep-
xis dna i lliw ta ecno dnes uoy eno derdnuli
dna evlewt sdnuop fo ym tseb seotatop ! ! ! "
It will be seen at a glance that this cipher
is merely the ordinary words reversed in their
spelling, and with a very little practice of
reading the reverse way one makes it out very
readily : " The potato man thinks after reading
this, you will feel that his small puzzle and
generosity is novel if not interesting. It takes
time and patience to read, consequently the
facts should be more firmly rooted on your
memory : this is the object in writing these
few lines. We wish you to have a bag of our
potatoes, so that you may know the true value
of them, and after once trying them I feel
sure you will- repeat your order from time to
r 52 CR YP TOGRA PH V
time. As I know the potatoes are good, I
have no hesitation in putting before jou my
generous offer : kindly forward six shillings
and sixpence, and I will at once send you
one hundred and twelve pounds of my best
potatoes ! ! ! "
We may add parenthetically that the pota-
toes supplied are excellent in quality, that Ave
had pleasant experience of them long before
and after the issue of this cryptogram,^ and that
they are well able to stand on their merits even
without any adventitious aid ; and the same
remark may be made of the excellent " stick-
fast paste," which nevertheless is advertised,
amongst other ways, as follows : " STI OKPH
AST PAS T EST lOKS." As one more illus-
tration of this commercial use of cryptography,
we may quote the following advertisement :
"My darling, Rof tobacco og ot Nospmoht,
ytrof evif, Kcirederf Teerts, Daetspmah Daor."
^ And that we did not write or suggest this crypto-
gram !
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 153
The process again is simple reversal, and from
it the reader will readily learn where, if he be
a smoker, he may find due replenishment of
his pouch. Such trade uses of the crypto-
gram are naturally of the simplest nature, and
present no difficulty, as the great object is that
the person whose eye it catches should be able
to readily read the advertisement; to puzzle
and baulk him would frustrate the whole in-
tention of the thing.
We have now travelled throughout the cen-
turies from Julius Caesar and Herodotus to the
vendors of potatoes and the makers of paste
in this present year of grace ; from the victors
of Naseby, the fugitives of Culloden, to the
shopkeeper of the Hampstead Koad. Our
rapid review of these hundreds of years has
not been, we trust, without int'Crest, and it will
at least have shown that the subject has been
held of great importance, that it has taken its
part in making history, and in the rise and fall
of great causes, and that it is something more
154 CRYPTOGRAPHY
and better than a mere shield to the knave or
the veiled appeal of the love-struck swain in
the columns of the newspaper.
Frcx. 15.
We turn now to the practical consideration
of divers systems of cryptographic commvini-
cation, and tlie first of these is that known as
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 155
the "grille." It is a very good method for
short communications. The sender and re-
ceiver are each in possession of a similar piece
of cardboard, and this cardboard is pierced with
openings at irregular intervals. The sender
then writes his message through these open-
ings on to a piece of plain paper that is placed
beneath. He then removes the grille/ and fills
up the rest of the paper with any other letters
or words that occur to him as being calculated
to throw any unauthorized third person off
the scent. The receiver merely places on the
communication his duplicate grille, and reads
the message, all superfluous material being to
him no distraction, since it is hidden by the
unpierced portion of his card. Sometimes the
essential message is veiled by the addition to
it of other words that transform it into an
entirely innocent-looking affair; but this is
very difficult to do properly. Any indication
^ In France, Le chassis or la grille ; in Germany, Nciz
or Gitten.
156
CRYPTOGRAPHY
of halting composition or the introduction of
any conspicuous word at once attracts attention
i iCdi iMEi
...
1 '-...J ... -L„.»-^«».«-
^"^ ~
isol [Ojli i
^si "N
'..-.. i. ....!.-.. »L.....J....-
wfj L...J.OS!
"sii bQ
, 1 .L. 1 X 1
'"'-""r'*""' !"•"*"»
\ iVq ;A|^
jqLI...
llOi iU ; iT
I L L J
Fig. 16.
and arouses suspicion. " I " and " for '' and
**with" are easy enough; but if the message
runs, " I send five hundred rifles for immediate
OR, CIFHER-WRiriNG 1 57
distribution, with necessary ammunition," it
would require an enormous amount of ingen-
uity to so wrap round "rifles" and "ammuni-
tion " with innocent padding as to make the
message read as though it were merely an
invitation for lunch and lawn tennis. It is,
therefore, better to face the fact boldly that
the message is imdoubtedly of a secret nature,
and then leave the objectionable third per-
son to get such comfort as he can out of it.
Fig. 15 shows the pierced card that the sender
uses, and of which the receiver holds an exact
duplicate. Fig. 16 represents the message,
" Come as soon as you possibly can to Louth,"
as it appears to the receiver when the grille is
placed upon it; while Fig. 17 is how it looks
when dispatched, and how it reads to any un-
authorized and grille-less person. The dotted
lines on Figs. 15 and 10 are of course only put
that the reader may trace more readily the
connection between the different squares : they
are of no use in the actual transmission.
158 CRYPTOGRAPHY
If, however, we did not care to risk sending
the grille by post or messenger, the second per-
son in the transaction could readily make one
VIGOR IVjEF^I C^STO
soREoHic p/\syLyo
UpilI^NOSP SiHeBL
rLyc \t^v ToLoic
LofTU EST rVh IE
Fig. 17.
for himself or herself, as it Avould only be
necessary to know which squares in each
row were pierced. In the top row of the pre-
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 159
sent arrangement we see that these are the
second, fourth, and seventh. If then we
take the first figure to indicate the number of
the row, and the others to be the openings,
a nought indicating the end of each row, it
would be easy to send a formula by which five
hundred miles away a duplicate grille, could be
made. It would in the present case nm as
foUows: 124703146802136804246051357. We
have not taken the rows in regular sequence, as
the following of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in order after
the noughts might suggest an idea to this
troublesome third person; but this is entirely
immaterial; the different rows are there all
the same.
If we have a suspicion that our grille, is
known, all that would be necessary would be
to turn it upside down, the old bottom edge
being now the top one. This at once throws
the squares into a new sequence, and gives us
a fresh start.
In Figs. 18, 19, and 20 we have a somewhat
l6o CR YPTOGRAPH Y
similar contrivance, the " revolving grille,"
though it is perhaps still more puzzling. The
grille this time has certain openings made in it
'o
o
o "
o
o
o
o
o
o
c
o
D
Fig. 18.
(of course we need scarcely pause to say
that their shape, round or square, is a very
minor point. Sometimes it would be easier to
cut a square hole, and sometimes to punch a
OR, CIPHER-WRITING
i6i
round one) ; but these openings do not, as in
the previous example, at once suffice for the
whole message. To use this grille, we first
Fig. 19.
place the card so that the edge AB is upper-
most, and in these openings we place as many
letters as they will take. We then, still keep-
ing our under paper in the same position
L
l62 CRYPTOGRAPHY
turn the grille so tliat BD is the upper edge,
and in these new blanks go on writing our
message until these in turn are filled. We
then turn the card until DC is the upper edge,
and proceed as before, and finally we give it
one more turn and bring the edge OA to the
top. The ten openings of Fig. 18 thus give
us in rotation forty openings, as we see in
Fig. 19. The result is a very hopeless-looking
mixture of letters, the effect we get in Fig.
20. This Fig. 20 is the communication as the
sender dispatches it, as the receiver gets it,
and as it appears to all who may see it. To
reduce this chaos to full legibility, the receiver
takes his duplicate grille and places it, AB
uppermost, on the message, and through its
ten openings he reads "urgent need." He
then turns the grill until BD is the top edge,
and the openings now read " only hold ou."
The next turn, DO, tells him " t another we,"
and the final shift of the card to CA as its
upper edge reveals now " ck at most JP," and
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 63
the whole warning stands clearly before him :
" Urgent need, only hold out another week at
most. — J.P." Fig. 19 is merely added to show
how the forty openings made by the revolution
U . 0
R
N
C E
I- E
N
K
T
A. N
^ Y
E
E
T
w. 0
H 0
0 0
L
T
U
H
N
0 R
T
W
P E
Fig. 20.
of the ten group themselves : the essential figures
are Figs. 18 and 20, being the grille used for
the message, and the resulting message itself.
l64 CRYPTOGRAPHY
We have already in Fig. 9 shown what
is technically called the " ladder " cipher, a.
form made by slipping a card along, and we
now have in Fig. 21 another arrangement
based on mnch the same principle, though it
works out somewhat differently. To make
this form, the " slip -card," we take a long thin
slip of cardboard, and then we cut two long
longitudinal slits in it, so as to about divide
the card into three equal portions. On the
centre portion we place the letters of the
alphabet in their regular everyday sequence.
We then get a broader piece of card and slip
this in the slits on the first strijD. This second
card is divided into squares, and in these
squares we place the letters in any irregular
way we choose, being only careful that every
letter shall appear somewhere in the length of
column one, and ditto in the case of all the
other columns. About four of these columns
will suffice. We now slip the paper along,
and place any one of these columns alongside
OR, CIPHER-WRITING
165
tlie alphabet on tlie thin
tinned to nse this cohimn,
it might gradually become
evident to any outsider
what letter stood 'for A
or E, and so on ; but we
can shift the card as often
as we like during the
making up of our mes-
sage, so that E is no
longer always C, for ex-
ample, but at the next
shift will be D, and then
presently it is T, and so
on. The shifting must
be intimated to the re-
ceiver, or the message
will all at once go chaotic
to him, so that at the
changing point we must
indicate by its proper
number what column we
strip. If we con-
1.
D
2
3
F
4-
B
C
L
H
N
N
P
L
Q
T
S
Y
A
C
D
T
H
u
Y
B
Q
K
Q
S
F
0
T
N
L
z
B
a
U
A
H
u
E
V
M
X
P
E
Z
w
V
H
w
A
S
P
V
z
w
L
k
M
Y
B
X
\
D
W
E
P
X
X
T?
C
K
ivi
U
Q
H
"R
I
V
IV\
F
N
E
0
1
C
K
Z
Q
F
0
I
S
K
K
T
Y
0
D
C
Fig. 21.
l66 CRYPTOGRAPHY
have changed to. These numbers would be 1 ,
2, 3, and 4, the others, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, being used
as blinds and non- significants, or to separate
words.
If then we desired to seiid the warning, '^ If
you do not return at once it will be too late," it
might read, ZU6SPR9TP6HPM2EDmEW8a
U6VWPD3GQ8KGXX6HT5QZZXFQT. The
message here begins with column one, at two
changes to the second column, and at three to
the third.
Figures are at times employed in lieu of
letters. It would, of course, be a great deal too
obvious that A should be 1, and B 2, and so
on ; but we may make matters a little more
complicated by letting the figures run in the
reverse direction, A being 26, B being 25, and
so forth, but still this too presents very little
difficulty. The following message appeared in
the Times of September 7th, 1866 : —
" 1. 2. 9.— 15 22 7, 14 22, 8 22 13 23, 24 12 9 9 22 8 ] 1
12 13 23 22 13 24 22, 4 18 7 19, 9 22 24 7 12 9, 12 21, 24
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 167
12 15 15 22 20 22, 11 7, 4 18 15 15, 22 3 11 15 26 18 13,
19 12 4, 7 19 18 13 20 8, 8 7 26 13 23, 18, 20 12, 26 25 9
12 26 23, 13 22 3 7, 14 12 13 7 19."
As the matter is now over thirty years old
there can be no objection to pointing out that
if we practise this simple reversal, the result
stands forth as " X Y E,. Let me send corre-
spondence with rector of College; it will ex-
plain how things stand. I go abroad next
month." Apart from the simplicity of its
construction, this cipher is faulty in having
always the same equivalent for each letter, and
in being cub up by commas into words. These
are points that greatly aid decipherment. The
numbers too, never running beyond twenty-
six, naturally suggest that they are the letters
of the alphabet.
Figure alphabets were very commonly used,
as we have seen, in the Stuart times. The
best arrangement is where each consonant is
represented by two combinations of figures,
and the vowels by still more. It is better, too,
l68 CRYPTOGRAPHY
not to employ single figures, such as 3 or 5
or 8, but to always take doubles, like 22 or 57.
The message then runs continuously : there is
no need to comma off the words, and every
pair of figures stands for one letter. Should
it at any time be suspected that the clue is
found, an almost impossible thing, a re-shifting
of the numbers is readily effected.
The following may be taken as an illustra-
tion : —
A. 21, 63, 95, 70. J. 37, 46.
13. 26, 27. K. 90, 64.
C. 31, 52. L. 32, 36.
D. 83. 65. M. 72, 98.
E. 41, 80, 34, 25. K 77, m.
F. 68, 28. 0. 42, 49, 56, 23. X. 67, 96.
G. 29, 40. P. 47, 50. Y. 89, 97.
H. 22, 30. Q. 33, 57. Z. 24, 45.
I. 62, 91, 86, 92. E. 69, 39.
This is the sender's list ; the receiver's key
would have the figures first, and then the
figures they represent. This latter would be
as follows : —
s.
48,
35.
T.
82,
58.
U.
43,
71,
93,
51
Y.
61,
76.
W.33,
81.
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 69
21.
A.
30.
H.
39.
R.
49.
0.
63.
A.
72.
M.
90.
K.
22.
H.
31.
C.
40.
G.
50.
P.
64.
K.
"S.
V.
91.
I.
23.
0.
32.
L.
41.
E
51.
U.
65.
D.
77.
N.
92.
I.
24.
Z.
33.
W.
42.
0.
52.
c.
m.
N.
80.
E.
93.
U.
25.
E.
34.
E.
43.
U.
56.
0.
67.
X.
81.
W.
95.
A.
26.
B.
35.
S.
45.
Z.
57.
Q.
^^.
F.
82.
T.
96.
X.
27.
B.
36.
L.
46.
J.
58.
T.
69.
R.
83.
D.
97.
Y.
28.
F.
37.
J.
47.
P.
61.
V.
70.
A.
^^.
I.
98.
M.
29.
G.
38.
Q.
48.
s.
62.
I.
71.
U.
89.
Y.
This, it will be noted, sets free 11, 12, 13, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 44, 53, 54, 55, 59, 60,
73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 84, 85, 87, 88, 94, and 99
for use for any special purpose, such as names
of people and places, or anything of such con-
stant occurrence that it would be an advan-
tage to be able to express it by two figures
instead of the twelve that would otherwise be
necessary to spell out London, or the twenty
that Parliament would require. Twenty- seven
pairs of figures are thus set free as symbols
for anything that may be decided upon be-
tween sender and receiver.
Any one sending a dispatch by this code uses
any figures he likes from those standing to the
170 CR YPTOGRAPHY
letter he Avants ; L, for instance, being either
32 or 36, while the receiver, glancing down his
key-list, sees that either 32 or 36 are equally
L. The prying would-be decipherer is thus at
once thrown off the scent. He knows, for in-
stance, that double L is a rather common
termination ; but when the same letter is repre-
sented sometimes by one pair of figures and
sometimes by another, he cannot find this
double L. " Shall,^' for example, would read
48223236 or 35303632. He knows, too, tliat
E is the commonest of all the letters ; but when
it may be 41, or 80, or 34, or 25, his chance of
detecting it is but small.
As our readers have the key before them, we
hand over to them the following message for
decipherment : 224247412680627769239834823
043393565218933344190.
By the old method called the " Mirabeau "
the alphabet is divided into five rows of five
letters each, marked from one to five, and
each letter of these rows is also thus
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 11 \
marked. C, for instance, would be the third
letter in the first five, and would therefore
be o, while I would be the fourth letter
of the second group of five, and would
therefore be t. In practice, however, this
regular alphabetical arrangement would be
discarded as being too tell-tale. The figures
6, 7, 8, 9, 0 are all non-significants, and the
receiver of the message would merely run his
pen through them. The number of the row is
written as the numerator of these fraction-like
symbols, while the lower number is the posi-
tion of the particular letter in the row. A
good workable code would be as follows : —
1 QGALY; 2 DHNRX; 3 BIMSY;
4 PKFUZ; 5 EOTWC. " Consfcantinople "
by this code would read as follows : —
57523^512 ^3J 5 4 1^
5 2 3 49 3 3 83 390 1 38 2 10 4 YT
This is a very good system. It will be seen
that it gives good scope for varying the sym-
bols of individual letters; thus the thrice
172 CRYPTOGRAPHY
occurring N of this word is each time repre-
sented bj a quite different symbol. As an
exercise in the same key we hand over the
following to the consideration of our students
of cryptography : —
4 29 4 38 27 47 18 3 17 1 i9 4'
Yet another numerical method is that of
Count Grousfield. For this any three figures
are taken, as, for example, 431. The message
is then written out roughly by the sender, and
these figures placed over each letter in the
43 14 314314 31 43
following way : Come at once to us
We now proceed to write out our message for
dispatch, but instead of using C we use the
fourth letter from it ; instead of 0 we employ
the third letter from it, and instead of M the
first letter from it, while for E we recompience
by taking in its stead the fourth letter in the
alphabet from it. Our message would there-
fore read GRNI DU SQDI WP YV. Here
again it will be seen that the same symbol is
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 73
not always associated witli the same letter.
Thus the twice recurring C is in one part of
our communication represented by Gr, and in
another by D, while the threefold 0 is E, or S,
or P, in different parts of the message. Of
course, if we took 513 as the recurring num-
ber, the letters we introduced into our crypto-
gram would be in regular sequence the fifth,
first, and third from the true ones, and there
is, we need scarcely say, no special virtue in
grouping the figures in threes, the key might
as readily be composed of four or five. Thus
we might, for example, use 31042, and our
3104 23 1042
message would then read, Come at once
3 1 0 ^4
to us, the cryptogram based on this key
being, FPMI CW PNGG WP UW. The
following statement, based on the key of 2130,
we pass on to our readers: KM-HSV-FQCQSH-
CJFC-LWJ. The system is a very simple
and good one, the key being of so easy a
nature to remember or to transmit.
In some ciphers the real letters are em-
174
CRYPTOGRAPHY
ployed, but they only reveal tlieir meaning
when read in some special way : left to
right, and then the next right to left, up-
wards, or downwards, or diagonally. They
are ordinarily, however, not difficult of detec-
T
I
0
E
F S
P \ E
C
N
C E
P
S
F
E
c
I
T
I
C
E
F
s 1 P
E 1 C
N
I
N C
E
P
S
F
E
C
I
C
E
F
S
P 1 E
0 1 N
I
R
I|N
C
E
P
S
F
B
c
E
F
s
P
E C
N 1 I
R
P
R 1 I
N
0
E
P
S
F
E
F
S
P
B
0 1 N
I R
P
0
P R
I
N
C
E
P
S
F
S
P
E
c
N|I
r| P
0
I^
0 1 P
R
I
N
0
E
P
s
P
E
C
N
I|R
P 0
L
I
L 0
P
«
I
N
0
E
P
E
C
N
I
R P
0 1 L
I
s
I ! L
0
P
R
I
N
C
E
P
E
C
N
I|B
P 0
L
I
L 0
P
R
T
N
0
E
P
S
P
E
C
N I
R P
O
L
o|p
B
I
N
C
E
P
S
F
S
P
E
C N
I R
P
0
P R
I
N
c
E
P
S
F
E
F
S
P
E j C
N I
R
P
R
I
N
C
E
P
s
F
E
C
E
F
S
P 1 E
0 1 N
I
R
I N
c
E
P
S
F
E
C
I
C
E
F
S \ P
E 1 C
N
I
N C
E
P
S
F
B
C
I
T
I
0
E
F S
P 1 E
C
N
0 1 E
P
B
F
E
C
I
T
Fig. 22.
tion, and we need scarcely pause to give
more than one example of them.^ A better
^ In this illustration, Fig. 22, taken from a monu-
ment in an old Spanish church, the inscription " Silo
princeps fecit" can be read in over two hundred dif-
ferent ways, starting from the central S.
OR, CIPHER-WRITING
175
way is to wrap tlie letters up amongst
divers non-significants, and resting on some
sucli simple key as that the letters of the
message shall be those that follow anything
that begins or ends with S. All suspicious-
ABC
4
DEF
7
Chi
3
JK,L
5
MNO
1
PQf\
STU
2
V\A/\
s
Vz
Fig. 23.
looking words should be well broken up. In
the following illustration we have taken the
intimation, "I will be up in London to-
morrow"; and to make it clearer to our
readers, we have put the message itself in
176 CRYPTOGRAPHY
a different type — tlioiigli tliat is, of course,
in practice, tlie very last thing we should
do — si % tels ivi fet so II sigh he o sigh ii
far sign p has in smu lo peps ndo ri s n
see iomo ss rr ped sip ow ex.
The arrangement seen in Fig. 23 has some-
times been employed, and as it is one fairly
good system the more to add to our store,
we give details of it. At the same time, it
is by no means so good as some of the
others we have dwelt on. A square is
drawn, and each face of it is divided into
three equal parts. From these lines are so
drawn that the big square is subdivided into
nine small ones. In the first of these we
place ABC, in the second D E F, in the
third GrHI, and so on in regular sequence,
until all our squares are lettered. We then
place, also in each square, any one number
from one to nine, disposing them in an en-
tirely irregular and casual way. In our
present example it will be seen that these
ORy CIPHER-WRITING 111
numbers run as follows: 4.7.3.8.1.5.2.9.6. In
this key a plain 4 stands for A, a once-
dotted 4 for B, and a twice-dotted 4 for C,
and so on all through. South Kensington
WTL
HSV
m
m
BO
KU
(XZ
PDY
WE
tL&dEIFliilH
fe|]lE3SO
biPim^iFIIIl
jij
ml
Fig. 24.
Museum would by this system appear as
2i223087i23i32ii0122721. In sending the
key it would only be necessary to send 473
815296, as the receiver would then place the
alphabet in the nine squares he would thus
M
lyS CRYPTOGRAPHY
number. If any treachery or underhand
work were suspected, one would merely sub-
stitute 965213874, or any other fresh com-
bination.
If two persons provide themselves with a
copy each of the same edition of a good
dictionary, they may be able to communicate
with each other in cryptogrammic fashion,
though the method is only available for
fairly common words, and is of no use for
proper names. The method is to write down
not the word itself, but whatever word one
finds a certain number of places back or for-
ward. Thus, desiring to send off the warn-
ing, '' Get away soon as you can," we use,
instead of these words, those that we find
in our dictionary three places behind them.
So that our message reads, " Gesticulator
awakening sonneteer artless yolk camphor."
The system shown in Fig. 23 is ingenious,
and so is that shown in Fig. 13; but we
have in thinking them over devised our-
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 179
selves a combination of the two, to which we
will giv^o the name of the Newark crypto-
gram, that we think is an improvement on
both. For the dots of Figs. 13 and 23 we
have substituted lines, as being somewhat
clearer and more definite. It seems to us
that it is rather a weak point in Fig. 23
that the second letter has one dot and the
third two. In Fig. 24, the Newark, we have
got rid of the X-like cross of Fig. 13, and
have grouped our letters into threes, as in -
Fig. 23, the odd space over being given to
a second E. Having got, as in Fig. 13,
various arrangements of right angles, the one,
two, or three lines may be disposed in them
in any direction we please. The six charac-
ters in the vertical column are all, for in-
stance, variations of the letter L, though they
all agree in the essentials in having the right
angle, and within it three lines. By this
method, therefore, with a little ingenuity, we
need scarcely repeat any form, and we may
1 80 CR YPTOGRAPH Y
get the twenty-six letters of our alphabet
represented by over two hundred different
symbols. W being the first letter, is repre-
sented by one line, T by two lines, and L,
the third letter, by three lines ; all being
represented within a right angle of the same
direction. F is the first letter, and there-
fore one-lined ; N the second, and therefore
two- lined ; R the third letter, and therefore
three-lined, in a right angle of the reverse
direction.
In Fig. 25 we have a representation of the
" clock-hands " cipher. It is less effective as
a cryptogram than some of the methods that
have preceded it, since all its values are con-
stant— the same forms always representing
the same letters, except in the case of the
threefold E — and therefore rendering it more
easy of analysis and ultimate detection. One
great advantage of it is that the forms are
60 simple in character and so distinctive : it
is, therefore, a very easy cipher to write or
OR, CIPHER-WRITING l8l
read. The dots are absolutely meaningless,
and are merely put at random as blinds.
The intimation given beneath the alphabet
in Fig. 25 is as follows: "Clock-hand cipher
is simple in character."
\}JVLLl\S\^\\VrA
ABCDEE^FCHiJKL
A)v<r^m-/w\i
MM 0PQR5TUVWXV Z
JAyJF\\)VJK{\C\\\}
Fig. 25.
The " two word " cipher is a very good
one, the same letter being represented by
different characters. To work this out, we
take any two words of reasonable length and
place them, one along the upper edge of a
series of ruled squares and the other down
l82 CRYPTOGRAPHY
one side. In these squares we place the let-
ters of the alphabet in regular sequence until
all the squares are filled. The words (see
Fig. 26) that we have selected are " ordinarily
thoughtful " ; this, therefore, will mean ten
squares wide and ten deep, one hundred
squares altogether : so that we get the aljoha-
bet repeated in full three times, and only
•four letters short of a fourth. We see now,
by referring to E, that it may be either NT,
OU, RH, or DU, while double S would be
LH, NGr, OF, or RL at pleasure. Of course,
by taking more squares still — that is to say,
longer key-words — still more combinations
could be made, but the present number is
really ample. There is no necessity that the
two key-words should be of equal number
of letters. " Ordinary thought " would have
given us fifty-six squares, and that would
have meant that the alphabet would have
come twice over, and a few letters thrice.
It is by no means necessary that the key
OR, CIPHER^WRITING 183
letters should be words at all; one miglit
simply adopt any chance arrangement of letters
in their place. The words are only useful as
0
R
D
1
N
A
R
1
L
Y
A
B
C
D
E
F
C
H
1
J
K
L
M
N
0
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
A
B
c
D
E
F
Q
H
1
J
K
L
M
N
0
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
A
B
C
D
E
F
c
H
1
J
K
L
M
N
0
P
Q
R
S
T
u
V
W
X
Y
Z
A
B
C
D
E
F
C
H
1
J
K
L
M
N
0
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
T
H
0
U
c
H
T
F
U
L
Fig. 26.
being easily remembered should the key be
mislaid and a new one have to be made. It
makes transmission of the key easy also. If
l84 CRYPTOGRAPHY
we send to our correspondent the words
*' ordinarily thoughtful " on a post- card, no
suspicion is aroused, and he at once proceeds
to make his key, so many squares wide and
so many deep, and then fills them in with
the letters of the alphabet. Each real letter
of the message is represented by two letters
in the cryptogram; so that the receiver, on
getting the message, takes a pencil and pro-
ceeds to cut up the communication at each
pair of letters with a little upright line, and
then, by the aid of his key, translate it into
ordinary wording. The specimen message we
append is, " Hope to be with you by Tues-
day "—ITNHRGDU YHOG ETOU LGNU-
AGIT RFETDFOT IHRF YHRGRHLHIT-
RORF. The same message might be given
in quite different characters; thus the "hope"
might equally well have been lUOGILNT.
Whether there be such a thing as an abso-
lutely indecipherable cipher one cannot say,
but this " two word " combination must come
OR, CIPHER-WRITING 1 85
sufficiently near that ideal for all practical
purposes.
The subject is by no means exhausted, but
enough has been brought forward, we trust,
to justify in the first place our plea for the
historic interest of cryptography, while the
examples we have given are a testimony to
the abundant ingenuity that the art has
called forth. While the art of secret w^rit-
ing may be turned to the basest uses, to
many it should be a source of innocent re-
creation and an ingenious form of puzzledom ;
while its value in time of peril is such that
a knowledge of it may save hundreds of
lives, or avert catastrophe from the nation
itself.
INDEX
*' So essential did I consider an Index to be to every
book, that 1 proposed to bring a Bill into Parliament
to deprive any author who published a book -without an
Index of the privilege of copyright, and, moreover, to
subject him to a pecuniary penalty." — CamphelVs ^^ Lives
of the Chief Justices of England.^'
A.
" A and B " cipher of Lord
Bacon, 103.
Abbreviated advertise-
ments, 131.
Abbreviation of inscrip-
tions, 64, 65.
"According to Cocker," 133.
^neas Tacitus as a crypto-
grapher, 24.
" Agony columns " of the
newspapers.
129.
Alfred the Great, secret
alphabet of, 26, 68.
Alum as a writing material,
39.
Arbitrary characters as
ciphers, 61, 105.
Archimedes, writing round
stick, 47,
" Ars Scrihendi Character-
is;' the, 62.
Astronomy, perverted in its
aim, 12.
B.
Backs of slaves a writing
surface, 53.
Bacon, a cryptographic
enthusiast, 101.
Beads and precious stones
ciphers, 96.
Bracelet alphabet, how
made, 96.
Brass, writing upon in-
visibly, 46.
Business ciphers for mark-
ing goods, 149.
187
i88
INDEX
C.
Camden Society, reproduc-
tions by, 76.
" Century of Inventions,"
the, 82, 94
*' Characterie," early book
on shorthand, 63.
Charlemagne as a crypto-
grapher, 26.
Charles I. a great believer
in cipher, 68, 71.
Chemicals, use of, in v^^rit-
ing, 55.
Chemistry, a good or evil
as used, 12.
Cherry juice as a writing
material, 40.
Chinese characters, 19, 77.
Chloride of cobalt as a
writing material, 57.
Citron juice for secret writ-
ing, 39, 46.
Clarendon's " History of the
Kebellion," 69.
"Clock-hands" form of
cipher, 180.
Cocker's Arithmetic, cipher
in, 133.
Coinage, abbreviations on,
65.
Colours expressed by lines,
98.
Conrad us on art of de-
cipherment, 115.
Cooper, Mr., as a decipher-
ing expert, 77, 79.
Copper, writing invisibly
upon, 46.
Correspondence captured at
Naseby, 69.
Count Grousfield's cipher,
172.
" Cryptograjphia denudata,'^
the.
Crystal, art of writing on,
42.
D.
Dactylogy or finger-talk,
16.
Decipherment, the art of,
76, 103, 109.
Delight in the mysterious,
14.
Derivation of cryptography,
11.
Dictionary cryptogram ,178.
Disappearing writing, 44.
Double letters in constant
use. 111, 170.
Dr. Dee, the labours of, 29.
Drugging the message-
bearer, 53.
Dummy characters inserted,
71.
Dust or soot as a medium,
41.
Dutch three-letter words,
119, 120.
INDEX
189
E.
Eggs, conveying messages
by, 43.
Egyptian hieroglyphics, 18.
English three-letter words,
120.
E, the commonest English
letter, 75, 110, 122.
F.
Fig-tree juice as an ink, 42.
Flashing mirrors as signals,
16.
Flight of James II., 82.
French in the family circle,
19.
French Revolution, the, 14.
a.
Galls, use of, in writing,
88.
" Gentleman's Magazine,"
reference to, 115, 134.
Glass, secret writing upon,
42.
Goats' fat as writing ma-
terial, 39.
" Gold Bug " of Poe, crypto-
gram in, 145.
Grape juice as an ink, 40.
Greek letters during Indian
Mutiny, 20.
"Grille" form of crypto-
gram, 155.
Gum arabic and gum tra-
gacanth, 42.
H.
Head of slave as writing
surface, 25, 52.
Heraldic use of lines for
colours, 98.
Herodotus as an authority,
24.
Hidden, not necessarily
secret, 25.
Hieroglyphics not ciphers,
18.
" History of the Rebellion,"
Clarendon, 69.
Human voice shut up in
tube, 16.
Hurgoes and Climabs in
Parliament, 144.
Inks, chemical, for writing,
55.
Inscription in country
church, 75.
J.
Jangling of bells as a
signal, 16, 95.
Juniper juice as writing
material, 39.
190
INDEX
K.
Kidd's treasure cliest dis-
covered, 145.
" Knotted string " alj^lia-
bet, 95.
*' Ladder " form of cipher,
164.
Legitimate use of crypto-
graphy, 13.
" Les Notes occultes des
Lettres;' 33.
" Lexicon Bijplomaticum ,'
the, 64.
Litharge, its use in secret
writing, 39.
M.
Marquis of Worcester's
book, 82, 94.
Mary Queen of Scots' use
of cipher, 82.
xVia^ marks, their use, QQ.
Message wrapped round
ruler, 47.
"Mirabeau" form of cipher,
170.
" Monas Hieroglyphica " of
Dee, 30.
N.
Naseby, battle of, 69, 70.
" Natural Magick " of
Porta, 33.
" Newark " form of ciphei-,
179.
Nitrate of silver, use of,
50.
"Noughts and crosses "form
of cipher, 125.
Nulles, or non-significants,
72, 97, 110, 133.
Numbers, use of, in ciphers,
72, 78, 104, 166, 172.
O.
Objections to study of cryp-
tography, 12.
0, largely used in Italian
and Spanish, 110, 123.
" One and two " form of
cryptogram, 104.
Onion juice as an invisible
medium, 39, 58.
Orange juice as writing
material, 39, 46.
Papal Inquisition, victims
of the, 43.
Pepys, the Diary of, 63.
Pharamond, a cryptograph-
ist, 26.
Pigeons as message-bearers,
52.
Poe's use of cipher in story,
145.
Polygraphia or Stegano-
graph ia, 27.
INDEX
191
Soot or dasfc revealing
Porta on cipher writing, | Smell, sense of, used, 94.
28,33.
Potatoes as subject for
cipher, 150.
Publication of Parlia-
mentary debates, 144.
messages, 41.
i *' Standard," advertisement
from, 129.
Steam engine, germ of the,
: 83.
I Steganographia, 27.
Rawlinson on Sheshach, ^ stick-fast paste in cipher,
R.
21.
152.
"Revolving disk" cipher, | g^jck, message wrapped
80, 110.
round, 47.
Revolving grille " cipher, j String, message by means
160
Ribbon messages, 95
" Ring " cipher, 87.
of, 99.
Suetonius, early use of
cipher, 24.
Royalist and Parliamen- | Sulphate of copper as an
tarian, 14.
"Rule" form of cipher, 87, i
92
ink, 57.
Symbolism of action, 15.
Scythian message to Per- Taste, sense of, used, 94.
sians, 15.
Telegram-English, 61
Sheshach as a cryptogram. The, the commonest Eng-
20.
lish word. 111.
Shop prices in cipher, 149. "Times," advertisement
Shorthand, early books on,
62, 63.
from, 129, 130, 166.
Tramps and their signs, 148.
" Siglarium Bomanum,^^ the, ; Trithemius, cryptograph-
64.
ist, 28, 104.
Sinking of ships signal ' Tudor period, great use of
II
code, 69.
" Slip -cord " form of cryp-
togram, 164.
cipher, 68.
"Two-word " cipher, nature
of, 181.
19:
INDEX
Tyronian symbols, 62.
Verney, Sir Ralph, cipher
of, 76.
Victims of the Inquisition,
43.
Vinegar and vitriol as
inks, 37, 41,58.
Vowels, the commonest
letters, 111.
W.
Watch-fire signals, 16.
Waxed tablets, use of, 24, 25.
Weapon of the ill-disposed,
12.
Writers on cryptography,
27.
Cutler & Tanner, The Sehvood Printing Works, Fromc, and London.
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